Anger as Government STILL won't collect data on grooming gangs

Published: 17:38 EST, 11 November 2026 | Updated: 17:45 EST, 11 November 2026 Ministers are dragging their feet on tackling Asian grooming gangs, the author of an official report into the scandal has warned.Louise Casey published a damning 'audit' of the authorities' failure to deal with grooming gangs last year, saying that the findings of previous reports had been ignored.Ministers accepted all 20 of her recommendations. But 18 months on, she said progress on implementing her findings 'has not been what I would like it to be'.Baroness Casey said the Government had still not acted on calls to collect vital data on the ethnicity of offenders.She said her patience on the issue had 'worn very, very thin' after discovering how little progress had been made since she first reported on grooming gang activity in Rotherham in 2015.As a fresh crisis swirled for Labour and Keir Starmer in early 2025, with Elon Musk amplifying the pressure, the baroness was parachuted in once again.But she told Radio Four's Today programme yesterday: 'I would like more momentum on the changes needed, both in the police and the Home Office on the way we collect data.'We are still not prepared to collect data in terms of religion and ethnicity – all the things that get us into hot water where we do not have the right evidence to analyse what is going on in terms of abuse of children and grooming gangs and how they operate. I'm impatient for change and I don't think the momentum has been good enough.' Baroness Louise Casey makes a speech at the National Children and Adult Services ConferenceDowning Street refused to say whether it would legislate for the report's recommendation to make having sex with a child aged 13, 14 or 15 a statutory rape offence, as it is for younger children.Currently the provision only applies to those aged under 12 – a fact Baroness Casey described as 'staggering'.She said there had been 'enough convictions across the country of groups of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds to have warranted closer examination,' but added: 'Instead of examination, we have seen obfuscation. In a vacuum, incomplete and unreliable data is used to suit the ends of those presenting it.'The Prime Minister's official spokesman said police forces had been asked to review all previous grooming gang cases to see if any could be reopened.The spokesman said forces would be required to collect ethnicity data but could not say when this would happen.Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: 'Labour are still too scared to collect data on ethnicity and religion.'Police whistleblower Maggie Oliver added: 'This is not simply a lack of momentum. It is a shameful and continuing failure by successive governments to fulfil their most fundamental duty: to protect our children.'