Police warn Home Office grooming gang funding falls short of operational needs
The Home Office has committed nearly £38 million to Operation Beaconport and £9 million for AI detection tools, yet forces fear the costs of dedicated teams will outstrip the £100 million package.
Police forces in England and Wales have cautioned that the UK government’s recent funding boost for tackling grooming gangs is insufficient to meet operational demands. The Home Office has allocated nearly £38 million to Operation Beaconport to review closed inquiries, an increase from £4 million last year, alongside £9 million for AI technology to detect online abusers. Despite this near tenfold rise, law enforcement warns the funds will likely fall short of covering the costs associated with the scale and complexity of group-based child sexual exploitation.
The increased cash is not expected to cover the funding forces would need to meet the anticipated cost of a dedicated team, police sources said. The scale and complexity of the reviews involved are expected to require a significant number of officers over an extended period. This warning comes as Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces intensifying political pressure, following the resignation of Home Office minister Jess Phillips and ongoing scrutiny from Reform UK, which has campaigned on the issue in Labour’s heartlands.
In response to the funding announcement, Phillips said it was about time that grooming gangs and all forms of child sexual abuse were seen as a priority. She added that the extra funding would go a long way to righting historical wrongs, but stressed that efforts must now turn to preventing harm from occurring in the first place. Her comments follow a period of significant political turbulence, including pressure mounted in January 2025 after Elon Musk highlighted the government’s refusal to grant Oldham council a second national inquiry.
The political context for this funding decision has been marked by delays in establishing a formal inquiry. Starmer announced a specific grooming gangs inquiry in June, but it stalled in October due to disputes over the remit and difficulties in finding a chair. Former children’s commissioner Anne Longfield has now agreed to chair a £65 million statutory inquiry into the issue, which will examine institutional responses and potential influences of ethnicity, culture, or religion on offending.
Beyond the review of closed cases, the £100 million package includes support for proactive measures. The Undercover Online Network, which targets predators on the dark web, will receive £11.7 million; this network facilitated 1,797 arrests and safeguarded 1,748 children between April 2024 and April 2025. Additionally, police officers will gain access to AI-enabled intelligence tools to analyse large datasets and identify patterns between suspects, a move the National Crime Agency says is vital as offenders become more technologically sophisticated.