Louise Casey, Baroness Casey of Blackstock
The Baroness Casey of Blackstock | |
|---|---|
Casey in 2012 | |
| Victims' Commissioner | |
| In office May 2010 – 12 October 2011 | |
| Preceded by | Office created |
| Succeeded by | The Baroness Newlove |
| Member of the House of Lords | |
| Life peerage 30 October 2020 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Louise Casey 29 March 1965 Redruth, England |
| Party | None (crossbencher) |
| Education | Oaklands Catholic School |
| Alma mater | Goldsmiths, University of London |
Louise Casey, Baroness Casey of Blackstock, DBE, CB (born 29 March 1965), is a crossbench peer and current British government official, where she serves as lead non-executive director. She was the deputy director of Shelter in 1992, the head of the Rough Sleepers' Unit (RSU) in 1999, a director of the national Anti-Social Behaviour Unit (ASBU) in 2003, head of the Respect Task Force in 2005 and the UK's first Victims' Commissioner in March 2010. She became director general of Troubled Families on 1 November 2011.
In February 2020, Boris Johnson appointed her as an adviser to help tackle homelessness, and she was later appointed as chair of the Rough Sleeping Taskforce, which was set up to curb rough sleeping during the COVID-19 pandemic. In July 2020 she was nominated for a crossbench peerage.
In August 2021, Casey was appointed to review the circumstances and prepare a report on the spectator invasion of Wembley Stadium, London, in July 2021 when thousands of ticket-less spectators broke through security arrangements for the final of the UEFA Euro 2020 football tournament. Later in 2021, Casey was appointed to lead an independent review of culture and standards into the Metropolitan Police in London following the murder of Sarah Everard. Her report, published in March 2023, concluded that the Metropolitan Police was "institutionally racist, sexist and broken".
In 2024, Casey was reportedly touted by Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer for a ministerial role in a future government, should he win the general election. In January 2025, she was appointed as the government's lead non-executive director.
In January 2025, in response to growing public pressure for a national inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal, Casey was commissioned to produce a national audit on group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse, which was published in June 2025. The audit found widespread data failures obscuring the scale of grooming-gang abuse, though evidence shows disproportionate numbers of offenders of Asian, especially Pakistani, background. It calls for a national inquiry, mandatory ethnicity and nationality recording, tougher child-protection laws, and tighter taxi-licensing rules. On 22 October 2025, Sir Keir Starmer appointed Casey to help carry out the national inquiry.