Bailey Review

The Bailey Review (titled "Letting Children Be Children") was an inquiry into what was described as "the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood". It was commissioned by the UK Coalition government in response to the manifesto commitments of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties in the 2010 general election. The Coalition believed that children in the UK were "being pressured to grow up too quickly", and sought recommendations on how to address what they perceived as public concern about this. On 6 December 2010 Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, appointed Reg Bailey CBE, Chief Executive of the Mothers’ Union (which had previously launched the "Bye Buy Childhood" report and campaign on the issue) to lead the Review. The results were published on 6 June 2011.
Recommendations.
The review made 14 recommendations:
Criticism.
Criticism after publication centred on the remit given by the Government. It was claimed that there was no open inquiry into the issue and the results were presupposed by the terms of reference. There was no attempt to define the "sexualisation" that was the basis of the enquiry, merely acknowledging that it was highly subjective. Questionnaires used were described as containing leading questions. The consultation focussed on the views of parents rather than women's rights organisations or experts on children. The choice of a representative of the Mothers' Union to lead the enquiry was seen, by some, as reinforcing this focus.
The recommendation of a voluntary code of conduct rather than legislation was seen as potentially ineffective. The lack of any reference to mandatory sex and relationships education or a strategy on ending violence against women and girls were seen as significant omissions.
Implementation.
Opaque screens on magazine shelves have been introduced by some supermarkets to hide the partial nudity found on some magazine covers from children. In 2013 The Co-operative Food called for publishers to put such magazines in sealed bags. In 2014 supermarkets Tesco and Waitrose announced that they would be redesigning their newspaper displays to prevent the front pages of tabloid newspapers being seen by children. The move followed a joint campaign between No More Page 3 and "Child Eyes". 'Active choice' filtering of adult content on the Internet (whereby the customer is required to actively decide whether or not to activate parental controls) in the UK by ISPs was also introduced in 2014.