Letter from Home Secretary to Inquiry Panel
Published 10 December 2025
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Home Secretary
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF
09 December 2025
Dear Baroness Longfield, Zoë Billingham and Eleanor Kelly,
Following the recommendation of Baroness Casey of Blackstock, I am pleased to appoint you as Chair and Panellists of the Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs. This Inquiry will be formally established under the Inquiries Act 2005 and will have full statutory powers to compel evidence and testimony. It represents a pivotal moment in our collective determination to confront one of the gravest failures in public protection.
The Government is implementing every recommendation set out by Baroness Casey following her National Audit published in June 2025. Her report laid bare over a decade of institutional inaction in the face of crimes perpetrated by grooming gangs – crimes that are among the most abhorrent imaginable. We are resolute in ensuring these failures are never repeated.
Victims and survivors will be central to this Inquiry. Their voices and experiences will shape its work from the outset, as reflected in the opening line of the Terms of Reference. The Inquiry should adopt a trauma-informed approach, ensuring engagement and support are delivered with sensitivity and focused on meaningful outcomes. I recognise that it will take time to earn the trust of victims and survivors who have too often been failed, and I know you are committed to doing so.
The Inquiry will have a budget of up to £65 million and is expected to conclude within three years, ensuring it is time-limited, targeted and proportionate to the scale of harm, in line with Baroness Casey’s recommendations.
The draft Terms of Reference reflect Baroness Casey’s call for national inquiry overseeing a series of local investigations. The Inquiry will examine historic and current practice, addressing systemic, institutional and individual failures, including missed opportunities for intervention, inadequate organisational responses and failures of leadership. It will also assess the impact on victims, survivors and professionals who reported these crimes, and whether lessons have been learned and embedded. It will work closely alongside Operation BEACONPORT, the national police operation recommended by Baroness Casey.
Today I have published the draft Terms of Reference. I ask that you lead a period of consultation on these, providing me with your recommendations to enable me as sponsoring minister to publish a final version by March 2026, when the Inquiry will formally commence its work.
In her recommendations, Baroness Casey emphasised that the Inquiry should develop a framework to identify local areas where failures have been particularly egregious, with the flexibility to commence investigations sooner where agreed with the Home Office and Inquiry leadership. Having discussed with you, I understand that you intend to prioritise Oldham as one of the early areas for local investigation. This follows the commitment made by my predecessor in January 2025 to hold a local inquiry there.
Thank you for taking on this vital responsibility. Your leadership will be instrumental in delivering justice, accountability and lasting change.
Yours sincerely,
Rt Hon Shabana Mahmood MP Home Secretary