Children across England and Wales were sexually abused and exploited by grooming gangs. There are serious questions about how and why institutions tasked with protecting children frequently failed to do so.
Working closely with victims and survivors of abuse, the Inquiry will examine those failures by following the evidence, wherever it leads. It will hold organisations and individuals to account and make recommendations to prevent future abuse.

The Inquiry is carrying out both national and local investigations.

National Accountability Hearings will be public hearings and will require relevant national organisations to explain what they did, what they did not do, and why previous recommendations were not consistently implemented or did not lead to meaningful change. we will also revisit areas where inquiries and reviews into grooming have already taken place to assess their progress. There have already been more than 800 recommendations from previous inquiries and reviews. In too many cases, these were not implemented or sustained.

Local investigations examine what happened in specific areas, including how children were targeted and exploited, how organisations responded, and why some children were not protected.

Using its statutory powers under the Inquiries Act 2005, the Inquiry may compel witnesses to give evidence and require organisations to provide documents.

The Inquiry is a statutory inquiry established under the Inquiries Act 2005. It was set up following Baroness Louise Casey’s 2025 national audit, which found serious and repeated failures to protect children from organised sexual abuse.

The Inquiry is now underway, with national accountability hearings starting at the end of this year and local investigations beginning.