The government must explain and defend its grooming gang inquiry decisions

When the government announced a statutory inquiry into grooming gangs in June 2025, it was presented as an opportunity for long-overdue accountability for survivors who had been overlooked by multiple public services and different governments. Just 18 weeks later, that promise already looks fragile.  

By mid-October several members had resigned from the inquiry’s survivors’ liaison panel, and the two shortlisted chairs, Jim Gamble and Annie Hudson, have withdrawn their candidacy. Some of the survivors and campaigners are now questioning whether the process can be trusted at all. This if nothing else should be a wake-up call for the government to explain – and defend – its handling of this inquiry to date. 

Establishing any inquiry is a political decision

Inquiries are principally the tools with which governments can investigate state failures – and are often seen as a last resort for victims and survivors when other avenues have failed. But despite that there is perhaps surprisingly little official guidance, and no set criteria, for how or when a public inquiry should be launched. The decision is inherently a political one, based on factors including political judgement and public pressure. Ministers choose when to establish an inquiry, what it should investigate, who chairs it and what powers it will have.  

Once set up, inquiries are formally independent, but the government sometimes sets unrealistic expectations about what it can, or should try to, do. Inquiries can do different things: identify lessons, provide an independent account of events, offer a sense of justice and catharsis, and so on. But no single inquiry can do all these things well. This makes ministers’ early decisions critical, and in this case early missteps – such as a lack of communication as to what extent victims and survivors would be involved in early decisions – are being felt acutely before the inquiry has even begun.  

The choice of chair can be one of the most sensitive early decisions

A key grievance among some of the panel is that the shortlisted chairs have extensive professional experience in policing and social care – with the inquiry expected to look closely at these two systems. The members of the panel who have quit cited a lack of trust in a chair who is perceived to be too close to the services they are investigating, and have called instead for a judge to lead the inquiry.  

Inquiries have been successfully led by chairs from professions other than the judiciary including the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) led by former social worker Alexis Jay. ⁷ Other examples are the Brook House inquiry led by Kate Eves, who has an extensive background in research within custodial environments, and the high-profile reviews into maternity care led by former midwife Donna Ockenden.  For many inquiries, expertise and professional credibility can matter as much as legal experience for a satisfactory outcome.  

But legal professionals have become the default option – three quarters of ongoing inquiries are chaired by a current or former judge, the others by lawyers and one bishop. Judges and lawyers unquestionably bring credibility and have consistently high levels of public trust, in contrast to government ministers. At the same time, there is a perception that judge-led inquiries are more legalistic, slower and less accessible. There is a further problem that with 25 ongoing (and long-running) inquiries the pool of potential judges who might be willing to chair an inquiry is getting smaller.  

This inquiry has highlighted the delicate balance of choosing the right chair: an insider who knows the landscape can navigate complex systems effectively but their proximity to the institutions can risk accusations of ‘marking their own homework’. What matters most is that the government can clearly justify its choice, showing how the chair’s background, independence and credibility align with the inquiry’s purpose. 

There is no set format for involving victims and survivors 

Victims and survivors are often heavily involved in campaigning for an inquiry to be established, but once established there is no legal requirement for the government to consult these groups in its design. They are often however designated as ‘core participants’ – which allows access to disclosure materials, input into lines of questioning and funding for legal representation. Their involvement can also shape recommendations and help sustain momentum for reform long after the hearings end.

Once an inquiry is established, testimony from victims and survivors can be some of the most powerful evidence an inquiry receives. Inquiries have begun to develop new ways to capture and build in this testimony throughout the process, not just at the start.  

The Covid Inquiry ran an extensive public engagement process called ‘Every Story Matters’, which is unique among Covid inquiries around the world. The IICSA ran the ‘Truth Project’, involving more than 6,000 victims and survivors of child sexual abuse who shared their experiences and informed the recommendations. The inquiry partnered with charities and practitioners to inform the design of the project and develop best practice in engaging victims and survivors. It also had a Victims and Survivors Consultative Panel ⁸ https://www.iicsa.org.uk/victims-and-survivors/victims-and-survivors-consultative-panel.html  to advise on and support engagement with victims and survivors.  

Engagement must be balanced with independence, which is what gives an inquiry authority to pursue lines of investigation and present difficult findings, but there needs to be a level of distance from all interested parties. This is why engagement is so tricky to manage when an inquiry is being set up.  

Disagreement isn’t necessarily bad – but how it is handled matters

Unfortunately, things have clearly gone very wrong with the process of setting scope of the inquiry and appointment of the chair of the grooming gang inquiry, and expectations have been poorly managed.  

Different ideas about what an inquiry should cover and who should run it are to be expected, and disagreement are more likely when the decision to establish the inquiry is a result of a political battle. This is particularly delicate in an emotionally charged context, and was also seen in the Grenfell Inquiry launched in 2017.

Added to this, victims, survivors and campaigners are not a unified group with one shared view. The panel members who quit the grooming gangs inquiry have made the resignation of safeguarding minister Jess Phillips a condition of their return, while another five have publicly said they back Phillips.  

Diversity of voices is both a strength and a challenge. The government’s job is to navigate those tensions honestly and transparently. It now needs to confidently defend the process for establishing the grooming gangs inquiry and the decisions it has made once it is up and running. Disagreement among survivors and the government is not necessarily a failure, but the government will have failed if it is unable to handle that fall-out, and defend its choices. 

The model of public inquiries needs a much wider rethink

This inquiry’s troubled start reveals systematic issues with the UK’s system of public inquiries. The UK does not lack either the appetite or ability to launch robust investigations into state failure, but successive governments have shown a lack of the political discipline needed to run a process that actively listens and takes and defends difficult decisions.  

Given the popularity of public inquiries – just last week the government launched a 25th concurrent public inquiry, into Leeds Hospital NHS Trust – it is important that these lessons are learned sooner rather than later.