In her latest annual report on Childhood Vulnerability published this month, Anne Longfield, the Children's Commissioner says that she has become 'increasingly frustrated by the number of vulnerable children who cannot meet their own ambitions because they are let down by a system that doesn't recognise or support them'

The inability to recognise these children is partly due to lack of available data on some categories of troubled young people - including the children of prisoners.

Many professional bodies have also acknowledged the lack of information as a barrier to providing children with appropriate support, as does the Farmer Review which recognises that:  '... there is currently no process for recording the number of children affected by imprisonment.'