Baroness Casey urges 'calm' over how race data is 'interrogated'
Baroness Casey went on to explain that the data on child sexual exploitation suspects points disproportionately to people of Asian heritage.
鈥淚 would say that鈥檚 putting it mildly, and I feel very strongly on issues that are as searing as people鈥檚 race, when actually we know the prejudice and racism that people of colour experience in this country, to not get how you treat that data right, actually, I think is a different level of public irresponsibility,鈥� she says.
"If you look at the data on child sexual exploitation suspects and offenders it's disproportionately Asian heritage.
She adds: "If you look at the data for child abuse it is not disproportionate - and it is white men.
"Let's just keep calm here about how you interrogate data and what you draw from it."
Baroness Casey goes on to insist that responsibility for tackling child exploitation should not just fall on the Home Office - but the departments of health, education and local government.
She urges better sharing of data between services and agencies, asking how this can be made mandatory.
She adds that the Home Office should not "drag their feet" on looking at police intelligence systems - "given we live in the 21st century".
"None of the issues in the audit sadly are new," Baroness Casey says. "I felt that other colleagues possibly could have found that, if they looked harder before us.
"We didn't do anything particularly clever, we just put together the facts as best we could and presented them."
She says: "This always causes me a bit of concern."