The home secretary has announced a national-level "rapid audit" and a series of local inquiries into UK grooming gangs. Yvette Cooper told the Commons that a review will look at the "current scale and nature of gang-based exploitation across the country". Report by Brooksl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00Last Monday, I set out the actions this government is taking forward to tackle the terrible crimes of child sexual
00:07exploitation and abuse
00:09Including mandatory reporting, a new victims and survivors panel, an overhaul of data and police performance requirements, tougher sentences for perpetrators
00:17and support for local inquiries including in Oldham.
00:22The Safeguarding Minister is this morning meeting with survivors from Oldham and earlier this week
00:27she and I met Professor Alexis Jay, who chaired both the seven-year National Independent Inquiry into child sexual abuse and
00:34the first local independent inquiry into grooming gangs in Rotherham.
00:39Professor Jay's strongest message to us was that the survivors who bravely testified to terrible crimes
00:47committed against them must not be left to feel that their efforts were in vain
00:52because despite all the inquiries no one listened and nothing was done.
00:56We will introduce stronger sentences for child grooming making it an aggravating factor to organize
01:03abuse and exploitation and I can announce new action today to help victims get more
01:09investigations and prosecutions underway.
01:12I'm extending the remit of the Independent Child Sexual Abuse Review Panel
01:17so it covers not just historic cases before
01:202013 but all cases since. As I said last week, we will overhaul the data
01:25we expect local areas to collect as part of a new performance management framework.
01:29But I've also asked the Child Sexual Exploitation Task Force to immediately expand the ethnicity data it collects and publishes,
01:36gathering data from the end of the investigation when a fuller picture is available,
01:40not just from the beginning when suspects may not yet have been identified.
01:44But in order to go much further
01:46I have asked Baroness Louise Casey to oversee a rapid audit of the current scale and nature of gang-based
01:53exploitation across the country and to make recommendations on the further work that is needed.