[4][5] 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.
[6] 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.
[9] Casey began her career with the Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS), administering benefit payments for homeless people.
At Shelter she gained a reputation as an "ambitious, pragmatic worker who got results" and was largely responsible for the creation in 1998 of Shelterline, the country's first 24-hour telephone helpline for homeless people.
[10] Following the 1997 general election, the Labour government in December that year created the Social Exclusion Unit (SEU), which had tackling rough sleeping as one of its priorities.
[11] In April 1999 the RSU was created and Casey appointed by Prime Minister Tony Blair as its head, referred to in the media as the "homelessness czar".
[17] The RSU achieved its target in November 2001, several months before the deadline, but allegations were made that they had used underhand tactics; Casey responded that they were false.
[21] The Respect Action Plan, launched in January 2006, was designed to deal with anti-social behaviour and problematic young people and families.
[31] It was reported in September 2011 that Casey would work with Prime Minister David Cameron in dealing with the consequences of widespread rioting a month earlier,[32] and she resigned from the position of Victims' Commissioner on 12 October 2011.
The Guardian reported on 10 September 2014: "In his written ministerial statement, Pickles says he has directed Casey to consider how the council exercised its functions on governance, children and young people, and taxi and private hire licensing.
'"[41] Casey's report was published on 4 February 2015, and found that the local authority's child sexual exploitation (CSE) team was poorly directed, suffered from excessive case loads, and did not share information.
The report criticised the Home Office for a lack of strategy to integrate new immigrants into communities and to respond to extremism among Muslims.
[49] In February 2020 Casey was appointed by Prime Minister Johnson to carry out a review of the government's strategy on homelessness, which aimed to end rough sleeping by 2024.
[50] This work was redirected due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and she is credited with arranging temporary accommodation for close to 15,000 rough sleepers as part of the government's Everyone In initiative.
[3] In August 2020 Casey announced that she had resigned from her government advisory role, including chairing the taskforce, stating that she wished to concentrate on her responsibilities in the House of Lords following her acceptance of a crossbench peerage the previous month.
[65] In the 2020 Special Honours, she was granted a life peerage as a crossbench peer,[66] and was created Baroness Casey of Blackstock, of Finsbury in the London Borough of Islington, on 30 October 2020.