Grooming Gangs Inquiry: National Accountability Hearings and First Local Investigations Announced

On 24 June 2026 the Inquiry set out how it will investigate grooming gangs, named the first three local areas it will examine, and published the scope of its national and local work. Here is what the Inquiry will look at, how it will run, and what it means for victims and survivors.

The Statutory Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs has set out the shape of its investigations. On 24 June 2026 it announced that it will hold its first national public accountability hearings by the end of the year, named the first three areas for local investigations, and published a suite of documents explaining the scope of its work and how people can take part. This article summarises the key developments and what they mean.

Where the Inquiry Has Reached

The Inquiry is a statutory inquiry established under the Inquiries Act 2005. It is independent of the Government and of every institution it is examining, and it covers the whole of England and Wales. Its final Terms of Reference were published on 31 March 2026, when it formally began its work with an opening statement from its Chair, Baroness Anne Longfield CBE. The 24 June announcements move the Inquiry from being set up into the substance of its investigations. It is examining events between 1 January 1996 and 31 March 2029, and is due to report within three years.

The National Accountability Hearings

The first phase of national accountability hearings is expected to take place at the end of 2026 or the beginning of 2027. Rather than starting from scratch, the hearings begin from the decades of inquiries, inspections, serious case reviews, criminal investigations and reports that already exist, and ask why lessons identified repeatedly were not turned into lasting change. The starting point is Recommendation 12 of Baroness Casey's National Audit, which concerned long-term implementation, cross-government coordination, monitoring and accountability.

The Inquiry has said the first phase will be in three parts:

• Part 1 examines what systems existed from 1996 onwards to protect children, why they failed, what national policy and guidance followed, which earlier recommendations were made and implemented, who was responsible for delivering change, and what governance and accountability mechanisms now exist. A wide range of national bodies may be questioned, including central government departments such as the Home Office and Ministry of Justice, ministers and parliamentarians, national policing bodies, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Children's Commissioners, health bodies, regulators and inspectorates, licensing bodies and others.
• Part 2 examines how relevant bodies responded to previous local investigations and what they did to act on the recommendations made.
• Part 3 examines technology companies and the role of technology in exploitation by grooming gangs.

The Inquiry intends to make early recommendations on all three parts and to monitor them throughout its lifetime. It has also said these hearings will examine any role played by ethnicity, religion and culture in why recommendations or changes were not, or were only partly, implemented. A further set of national hearings towards the end of the Inquiry will revisit these organisations in light of what the local investigations find.

The Local Area Investigations

Local area investigations will examine group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse by grooming gangs within a defined area. The focus is on the adequacy of institutional responses, the extent of any systemic or leadership failures, and whether children were effectively safeguarded. A local area can be defined flexibly, from a single local authority to a city, a metropolitan area or a group of neighbouring areas, and the Inquiry can follow the evidence across boundaries where offending or decision-making crossed them.

Each investigation works through a set of structured lines of inquiry. In broad terms, it will look at what local agencies knew about the risk and whether they shared that knowledge with one another, and at how the police, councils and other bodies responded and whether their decisions were good enough. It will look closely at how children were treated: whether they were recognised as victims and given the support they needed, or instead disbelieved, blamed or treated as criminals. It will examine missed chances to step in and stop the abuse, the part played by leadership and culture inside those organisations, the role of ethnicity, religion and culture, and how well different agencies worked together. It will also look at the places linked to this kind of exploitation, such as taxis and private hire vehicles, hotels, takeaways and other parts of the night-time economy, the vulnerabilities of the children who were targeted, and whether recommendations from earlier reviews were ever acted on. Each local investigation will produce its own report and feed into the Inquiry's national findings. Because it looks in detail at what happened in one place, this is the part of the Inquiry most directly concerned with the experiences of individual victims and survivors in that area.

The Inquiry cannot determine civil or criminal liability. Its role is to establish what happened, identify failings, hold institutions and individuals to account within its statutory remit, and recommend change. It will develop a process for referring criminal allegations and evidence to the appropriate authorities.

The First Areas, and How They Are Chosen

The first three local areas are Oldham, Bradford and Keighley, and London. Oldham had already been confirmed, and Bradford and Keighley and London were added on 24 June. The Inquiry has been clear that these are the initial areas and that further areas may be selected in phases as its evidence and analysis develop.

Areas are chosen against published criteria. The Chair and Panel weigh a range of evidence, including what victims and survivors have told the Inquiry, evidence of harm or risk, concerns about how organisations responded, previous reviews and unresolved issues, the level of public concern, and what an investigation would add to national learning. No single factor is decisive, and selecting an area does not mean the Inquiry has reached any conclusion about what happened there. All areas of England and Wales remain within the scope of the Inquiry's national work.

How the Inquiry Will Run

The Inquiry has full statutory powers to compel witnesses to give evidence and to require the production of documents. The national and local strands are designed to inform each other: the national hearings examine recurring themes, the local investigations test those themes in local practice, and the evidence is drawn together in the Inquiry's findings and recommendations.

Victims and survivors are meant to be at the centre of the process. They can give information to help shape an investigation without having to provide a formal written or spoken statement, unless they want to and the Panel considers it necessary. Their identity is protected too: every victim and survivor is given a cipher, a code used in place of their name, unless they choose to be identified. The Inquiry also works alongside Operation Beaconport, the national police

operation reviewing previous grooming gang investigations, and will be careful not to disrupt live criminal cases, though an ongoing police investigation will not automatically stop a local investigation from going ahead.

How Can Victims and Survivors Take Part?

There are several ways for victims and survivors to take part in the Inquiry. The most formal and wide reaching in terms of involvement is to become a Core Participant. This is a recognised role under the Inquiry Rules 2006, and it comes with rights such as legal representation, access to relevant evidence in advance, making opening and closing statements, suggesting lines of questioning for witnesses and recommendations for change.

For an individual victim and/or survivor, the main route to becoming a Core Participant is through a local area investigation in an area they are connected to, such as Oldham, Bradford and Keighley, or London. For the national hearings, this status is planned to go to groups and organisations rather than to individuals. It is also possible to take part without becoming a Core Participant at all, for example by engaging through the victim and survivor charter process and following the hearings when they take place.

Applications for Core Participant status will be made electronically and Core Participants can also apply for their legal costs to be paid from public funds under the Inquiry's Costs Protocol. The Inquiry has said that individual victims and survivors will not usually have to set out their finances in detail to be considered.

How Saunders Law Can Help

Saunders Law's Inquiries team has represented Core Participants in some of the most significant public inquiries of recent years, acting for victims, survivors and bereaved families. We are passionate about our work in the human rights field, and holding the government and public bodies to account by various means. We believe that Public Inquiries are an important tool for securing acknowledgement of shortcomings and wrongdoing, accountability and meaningful lasting change. Our work includes:

• The Grenfell Tower Inquiry
• The Infected Blood Inquiry
• The Covid-19 Inquiry
• The Undercover Policing Inquiry

We act for clients across England and Wales. If you were affected by group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse and would like to understand the Inquiry or your options for taking part, you can contact us on 020 7632 4300 or through our online enquiry form. We will talk things through with you at your own pace, and with your wellbeing as the first priority.