Guidance

Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs: draft terms of reference

Updated 11 December 2025

1. Overview

1.1 The Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs (the Inquiry) is established in recognition of the profound harm experienced by victims and survivors of grooming gangs.

1.2 This Inquiry responds to Recommendation 2 of Baroness Casey of Blackstock’s National Audit on Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (June 2025) (the “National Audit”), which called for a time limited, targeted and proportionate inquiry into cases of failures or obstruction by statutory services in relevant local areas. It will identify failures in practice and hold to account the individuals and institutions responsible for those failures. It should drive meaningful change in safeguarding systems at both local and national levels, ensuring that lessons are learned and that victims and survivors are placed at the centre of reform.

1.3 The Inquiry will cover England and Wales and should work in close collaboration with the national police operation (Operation Beaconport) recommended in the National Audit report, and together they should: deliver a more vigorous approach to right the wrongs of the past, bring more perpetrators to justice, hold agencies to account and deliver justice for victims and survivors. The national police operation should ensure more perpetrators will face justice; the Inquiry should ensure agencies will be held to account for past failings.

2. Victim and survivor focus

2.1 Victims and survivors must be at the forefront of the Inquiry’s approach, with trauma-informed engagement and support appropriately provided, and sustained attention given to achieving outcomes that accurately address and respond to their needs within the required timescales.   

2.2 The Inquiry must be clear and transparent. It must develop a charter about how victims and survivors can participate, and how their views, experiences and testimony will be used to inform and shape the nature of the Inquiry’s work.

2.3 Engagement must be inclusive and representative, recognising that victims and survivors are not a homogenous group and may have diverse experiences and characteristics. Engagement must endeavour to include victims and survivors across England and Wales.

3. Grooming gangs

3.1 ‘Group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse’ (‘group-based CSEA’) is a subset of child sexual abuse involving two or more perpetrators who are connected through formal or informal associations who are involved in or facilitate the sexual exploitation of children. This involvement may take many forms, including introducing children to others for the purpose of exploitation, trafficking a child for sexual exploitation, taking payment for sexual activity with a child, or allowing premises to be used for such activities.

3.2 The Chair must ensure that the Inquiry’s work focuses specifically on group-based CSEA committed by ‘grooming gangs’, as described in the National Audit.

4. Purpose and objectives

4.1 Building on the work of the National Audit, this Inquiry will identify and illuminate failings in historic and current practice in tackling grooming gangs in local areas across the country, as well as the role of national government.  These investigations shall include failures in respect of victims not usually resident in the relevant area, for example where they had been trafficked.

4.2 The Inquiry should identify systemic, institutional and individual failures, and make recommendations for improvement at both national and local level as appropriate.

4.3 The Inquiry should examine how ethnicity, religion or culture played a role in responses at a local and national level, as well as other issues of denial, as discussed in the National Audit. It will also consider the background (including ethnicity, religion and culture) of perpetrators and victims.

4.4 To fulfil its purpose, the Inquiry will pursue the following focused objectives through local investigations and a national review.

4.5 Local investigations

4.5.1 The objective of the local investigations is to identify failures in systems and procedures, and failures by individual leaders, in protecting children from grooming gangs within local areas, and make recommendations for immediate and longer-term change and improvement where required.

4.5.2 Specifically, the Inquiry may consider (as determined by the Chair):

• The nature, adequacy, and timeliness of organisational responses (both immediate and long-term) to suspected or confirmed cases of grooming gangs
• Missed opportunities for intervention, protection, and effective collaboration
• The response to, and impact on, individuals who reported grooming gangs crimes, including victims, survivors, and professionals
• Whether ethnicity, religion or culture played a role in the response; and
• The extent to which identified failures have led to changes in practice, policy, or legislation, and whether those changes have been effective

4.5.3 In any local area, this may include examination of the actions of the following services or agencies (as determined by the Chair):

• local safeguarding partnerships (and their predecessors)
• community safety partnerships
• regional safeguarding boards in Wales
• local authorities (including children’s social work and family services)
• police forces
• the wider criminal justice system (including the Crown Prosecution Service)
• health and sexual health services
• education settings
• youth and community services, including youth offending teams; and
• voluntary or third-sector organisations, such as victim support organisations

4.5.4 The Inquiry should make referrals to relevant professional bodies, as appropriate, where failures to carry out duties and responsibilities are suspected.

4.6 National review

4.6.1 To identify national-level recommendations for change in England and Wales, arising from local reviews, informed by those already addressed by the National Audit, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, or other government commitments.

4.6.2 Identify instances where, based on reports from local investigations, political or institutional accountability mechanisms have failed, and propose actionable recommendations to address and rectify these failures.

5. Scope

5.1 The Inquiry will cover England and Wales. Should the Inquiry identify any material relating to the other devolved administrations, it will pass them to the relevant authorities wherever possible.

5.2 The Inquiry will not address allegations relating to events in the Overseas Territories or Crown Dependencies. However, any such allegations received by the Inquiry will be referred to the relevant law enforcement bodies in those jurisdictions.

5.3 Exploitation does not necessarily occur in a single location. Any allegations of exploitation and abuse that crosses jurisdictional bounds will be passed on to relevant authorities wherever possible.

5.4 For the purposes of this Inquiry “child” means anyone under the age of 18. However, the Inquiry will consider issues in relation to the exploitation of individuals over the age of 18, if that abuse started when the individual was a minor.

5.5 The Inquiry should examine issues arising between 1 January 2000 and the setting-up date of the Inquiry.

5.6 The Inquiry will not attempt to be exhaustive, in that it will not investigate every local area where grooming gangs have operated, nor every case in each local area. Instead, it will consider areas and services where there is particular evidence of past failings, working closely with Operation Beaconport.

5.7 The Inquiry will consider which local areas to review. The criteria used to select local areas will be agreed between the Government and the Inquiry within three months of the formal setting-up date.  The Chair may decide for any local area that public hearings are required, but in other areas they may not be required and should be sensitive to the impact on victims and survivors.

6. Governance

6.1 The Inquiry will be led by a Chair and two Panellists, appointed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, under the Inquiries Act 2005.

6.2 The Chair may also appoint Assessors or advisors to assist the work of the Inquiry.

6.3 In addition to their roles and responsibilities under the Inquiries Act 2005, the Chair should in particular:

• oversee the Inquiry’s relationship with the National Police Operation (Operation Beaconport)
• work with Operation Beaconport to draw up a mechanism to allow proactive information sharing between Operation Beaconport and the Inquiry
• consider how victims and survivor testimony will inform the work of the Inquiry, through meaningful engagement and trauma-informed practice; and
• seek to achieve the most efficient use of both time and resources, keeping cost to the minimum possible, and leading to conclusions within the shortest possible time

6.4 In undertaking its work, the Inquiry may, where necessary and appropriate, engage with matters that intersect with ongoing criminal investigations. The Inquiry should take all necessary steps to avoid prejudicing such investigations, including liaising with relevant law enforcement bodies. The Inquiry’s work is conducted under the authority of its Terms of Reference and is not intended to interfere with or substitute for criminal proceedings. Where there are lines of inquiry the Inquiry is unable to pursue within the timescales established by these Terms of Reference due to ongoing criminal proceedings, this should be noted in the relevant report, but should not delay the timely delivery of that report.

6.5 Within six months of the commencement of the Inquiry, Operation Beaconport and the Inquiry should jointly publish a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). This document should set out the principles, protocols, and mechanisms for collaboration between the Inquiry and policing colleagues.

6.6 The Inquiry will operate for no more than three years, within a budget of £65 million. Within six months of appointment, the Chair should determine what must be delivered within this timeframe and budget (and dates for those deliverables) and report this assessment to the Home Secretary.  These Terms of Reference may be amended to reflect that work schedule.

6.7 These Terms of Reference must be reviewed on an annual basis between the Home Secretary and the Chair, with consultation with Welsh Ministers as appropriate, including to review progress and ensure the Inquiry can deliver within budget and to time. If timescales or budget are at risk the Chair has a duty to provide the Home Secretary with proposals to remedy that.

7. Recommendations and reporting

7.1 The Inquiry will publish findings and recommendations for each local area reviewed in accordance with the agreed timetable and aligned with the objectives set out above. These local reports should be made publicly available.

7.2 The Inquiry should proceed with sufficient pace to ensure that its recommendations can be implemented swiftly and effectively.

7.3 Before the conclusion of the three-year period, the Inquiry should synthesise the findings of the local investigations, and produce a final report that will comprise the national review described above in section 4.6. The final report should be submitted to the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary and subsequently published.

7.4 Local and national recommendations should be informed by consultation with the authorities most likely to be charged with their implementation.

7.5 Any reports of the Inquiry or necessary updates should also be shared with the First Minister for Wales as appropriate.