Alexis Jay | |
---|---|
Chair of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse | |
Assumed office 11 August 2016 | |
Appointed by | Amber Rudd (as Home Secretary) |
Preceded by | Dame Lowell Goddard |
Personal details | |
Born | Alexandrina Henderson Farmer 25 April 1949 Edinburgh,Scotland,UK |
Occupation | Professor,social work leader |
Alexandrina Henderson Farmer Jay,CBE (born 25 April 1949) is a British academic. She is visiting professor at the University of Strathclyde and the independent chair of the Centre for Excellence for Children's Care and Protection (CELCIS). [1]
Following the resignation of Justice Lowell Goddard,Home Secretary Amber Rudd announced on 11 August 2016 that Jay had been appointed to chair the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse,of which she had previously been a Panel member. [2]
Jay is a former senior social worker. [3] She was previously chief social work adviser to the Scottish Government [4] and a former president of the Association of Directors of Social Work. [5]
Jay was born in Edinburgh. Her father,who was a carpenter,died following an industrial accident when she was two. [6] She studied social work at Moray House School of Education,now part of the University of Edinburgh.
In 2005,she took up the post of chief social work inspector at the Social Work Inspection Agency (SWIA),a government organisation scrutinising all aspects of social services provided by local authorities in Scotland. [7] She served as chief executive and chief social work inspector until the functions of SWIA and the Care Commission were taken over by the Care Inspectorate in 2011. She remained as chief social work inspector to the Scottish Government until early 2013.
She led the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham,an investigation into child sexual abuse in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham in South Yorkshire. [4] She is the author of the investigation's report,published in August 2014. [8]
In September 2014 she was appointed to act as an expert adviser to an independent panel inquiry which was intended to examine how the UK's institutions have handled their duties to protect children from sexual abuse. [9] Following the abandonment of the initial panel inquiry in favour of a statutory inquiry,she was re-appointed as an adviser to the subsequent Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse chaired by Dame Lowell Goddard. After Goddard resigned as chair,it was announced on 11 August 2016 that Jay had been appointed to chair the Inquiry. [2]
On 20 July 2023,it was announced that the archbishops of Canterbury and York had appointed Alexis Jay to provide proposals for an independent system of safeguarding for the Church of England. [10]
She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours, [1] [11] and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2024 New Year Honours for services to the prevention of child sexual abuse. [12]
South Yorkshire Police (SYP) is the territorial police force responsible for policing South Yorkshire in England. The force is led by Chief Constable Lauren Poultney. Oversight is conducted by Police and Crime Commissioner Alan Billings.
Sir Malcolm David Evans,is an English legal scholar. He is currently Principal of Regent's Park College,Oxford,England and started in 2023.
Rotherham is a minster town in South Yorkshire,England. It is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham. Rotherham is named after the River Rother,one of two major rivers to flow through the town.
Dame Julia Unwin was chief executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) and the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust(JRHT). The Guardian in 2007 described her as a "major player in the voluntary sector." In 2012 she was appointed by the Scottish Government as a member of the Expert Working Group on Welfare and Constitutional Reform.
Dame Catherine Fiona Woolf,is a British corporate lawyer. She served as the Lord Mayor of London (2013–14),acting as global ambassador for UK-based financial and business services. She has held and still holds many other significant positions in the City of London.
Louise Casey,Baroness Casey of Blackstock,,is a British government official working in social welfare.
Shaun Wright is a British politician. He was the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner from 2012 to 2014. He was the first person to hold the post,to which he was elected as a Labour Party candidate on 15 November 2012. As he held a senior position in child services during the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal,he faced continual calls to resign. This resulted in his resignation from the Labour Party on 28 August and from his post on 16 September 2014.
Sarah Deborah Champion is a British Labour Party politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Rotherham since 2012.
The Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal consists of the organised child sexual abuse that occurred in the town of Rotherham,South Yorkshire,Northern England from the late 1980s until 2013 and the failure of local authorities to act on reports of the abuse throughout most of that period. Researcher Angie Heal,who was hired by local officials and warned them about child exploitation occurring between 2002 and 2007,has since described it as the "biggest child protection scandal in UK history",with one report estimating that 1,400 girls were abused by "grooming gangs". Evidence of the abuse was first noted in the early 1990s,when care home managers investigated reports that children in their care were being picked up by taxi drivers. From at least 2001,multiple reports passed names of alleged perpetrators,several from one family,to the police and Rotherham Council. The first group conviction took place in 2010,when five British-Pakistani men were convicted of sexual offences against girls aged 12–16. From January 2011 Andrew Norfolk of The Times pressed the issue,reporting in 2012 that the abuse in the town was widespread and that the police and council had known about it for over ten years.
The Telford child sexual exploitation scandal was a scandal spanning over several decades in the United Kingdom involving a group of men who were convicted of engaging in sexual contact with local female minors between 2007 and 2009 in Telford in the English county of Shropshire. While media reports had suggested there were 100 or more victims and around 200 suspects,the Sunday Mirror reported in March 2018 that up to 1,000 may have been affected,with some even murdered,in incidents dating back to the 1970s. Social workers and police cast doubt on this report,denying that Telford had a "discernible problem compared to other towns".
A dossier on paedophiles allegedly associated with the British government was assembled by the British Member of Parliament Geoffrey Dickens,who handed it to the then-Home Secretary,Leon Brittan,in 1984. The whereabouts of the dossier is unknown,along with other files on organised child abuse that had been held by the Home Office.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in England and Wales was an inquiry examining how the country's institutions handled their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse. It was announced by the British Home Secretary,Theresa May,on 7 July 2014. It published its 19th and final report on 20 October 2022.
The Centre for Excellence for Children's Care and Protection (CELCIS),based at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow,Scotland and is an organisation that supports the rights and well-being of children and young people and teenagers.
The South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner by-election was a 2014 by-election on 30 October 2014 for the position of Police and Crime Commissioner in the South Yorkshire Police region of the United Kingdom. It was triggered by the resignation of Shaun Wright,the inaugural South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner,who stepped down from the position on 16 September 2014 following the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal. Wright had been head of children's services in Rotherham between 2005 and 2010,while events surrounding the scandal were taking place. The Labour candidate,Alan Billings,was elected.
Dame Lowell Patria Goddard,is a former New Zealand High Court judge,from 1995 to 2015. She is thought to be the first person of Māori ancestry to have been appointed to the High Court. In 1988,she was one of the first two women to be appointed Queen's Counsel in New Zealand and in 1989 became the first woman to hold a Crown warrant. In 1992,she became Deputy Solicitor-General for New Zealand. Between 2007 and 2012 she chaired New Zealand's Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA). In 2010 she was elected as an independent expert to the United Nations Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture (SPT) and served in that capacity until 2016. From February 2015 until August 2016,she chaired the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in England and Wales.
Kathleen Anne Marshall is a British solicitor and legal scholar,specialising in child law. From 1989 to 1994,she was director of the Scottish Child Law Centre. From 2004 to 2009,she was Scotland's Commissioner for Children and Young People. She has been involved in a number of inquiries into child abuse:she chaired the Edinburgh Inquiry into Abuse and Protection of Children in Care and she chaired the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Northern Ireland.
Jayne Senior,MBE,is a British youth worker and manager of the Swinton Lock Activity Centre near Mexborough in South Yorkshire,England.
Sammy Woodhouse is an English activist against child sexual abuse. She was a victim of the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal,which she helped expose by giving an anonymous interview to Andrew Norfolk of The Times. Woodhouse has actively supported pardoning child sexual abuse victims for crimes they were coerced into committing.
Joyce Lishman the first woman Professor at Robert Gordon University,was a leader in social work education and research.
Ian Cornelius Thomas serves as the 51st Town Clerk of London and Chief Executive of the City of London Corporation since 2023.