15.3 PREVENT Strategy
The government's Prevent Strategy, originally formed in 2011 and updated in 2018, forms one element of the Counter-terrorism Strategy (CONTEST) and aims to reduce the threat to the UK from terrorism by preventing people from becoming influenced through extreme and radical ideology.
The counter-terrorism strategy is organised around 4 workstreams,
- Prevent: to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism
- Pursue: to stop terrorist attacks
- Protect: to strengthen our protection against a terrorist attack
- Prepare: to mitigate the impact of a terrorist attack
The aim of the Prevent Strategy is to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism by focusing on the following three objectives;
- challenging ideology that supports terrorism and those who promote it;
- protecting vulnerable individuals from being drawn into terrorism through appropriate advice and support;
- supporting sectors and institutions where there is a risk of radicalisation.
Prevent recognises that people who are engaged in terrorist activities are often initially drawn into extremist narratives and beliefs and that these narratives (violent and non –violent) should be challenged to stop people moving from extremist groups or from extremism into terrorist related activity.
The Counter Extremism Strategy 2015 defines extremism as; “the vocal or active opposition to our fundamental values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and the mutual respect of different faiths and beliefs. We also regard calls for the death of our armed forces as extremist.”
Radicalisation is as defined in the Prevent Strategy as “the process by which a person comes to support terrorism and forms of extremism leading to terrorism”
The threat level for the UK is set by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC). Threat levels are designed to give a broad indication of the likelihood of a terrorist attack:
- LOW means an attack is unlikely.
- MODERATE means an attack is possible, but not likely
- SUBSTANTIAL means an attack is a strong possibility
- SEVERE means an attack is highly likely
- CRITICAL means an attack is expected imminently
The Prevent strategy identifies four types of terrorism that the UK faces, these being:
- International, terrorist organisations operating in Syria and Iraq (Da’esh and Al Qa’ida and like-minded organisations).
- Northern-Ireland related
- Extreme right-wing
- Other, these are often small movements in reaction to a single issue, specific incident, or ideology
Contents
- The Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015(Jump to)
- 2020 – 2022 Sefton Prevent Action Plan(Jump to)
- The Sefton Channel Panel(Jump to)
- What is the process for progressing a Channel/Prevent referral?(Jump to)
- Governance and Accountability(Jump to)
- National Documents(Jump to)
- Local Policies(Jump to)
- Appendix(Jump to)
On 1st July 2015, the Counter Terrorism and Security Act (CTSA) 2015 became statutory.
Section 26 of the Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015 places a statutory Prevent duty on specified authorities in the exercise of their functions, to have ‘due regards to the need to Prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’. See Prevent Duty Guidance
The Sefton Prevent Action Plan 2020 - 2022 (Appendix A) is informed by national and local priorities. The key themes of the action pan are:
- To gather community intelligence to ensure community tensions are identified and resolved at the earliest opportunity
- To challenge the ideology that supports terrorism and those who promote it;
- To support and protect vulnerable individuals from being drawn into terrorism through appropriate advice and support
- To support sectors and institutions where there is a risk of radicalisation.
- To ensure effective partnerships are in place to support the delivery of the Prevent action plan in Sefton
A key part of Prevent is “Channel”. Police work with Local Authority Channel Coordinators (LACC) and public bodies, including local councils, social workers, NHS staff, schools and the justice system to identify those at risk of being drawn into terrorism, assess what the risk might be and then develop tailored support for those referred to them. This could range from mentoring to things like anger management or drug and alcohol programmes.
Not everyone referred to Channel will be deemed suitable for the programme. There is a filtering process in case the person isn’t really at risk of radicalisation, and to weed out referrals that are wrong or malicious. The process is about supporting individuals identified as being vulnerable to radicalisation and extremism at an early stage is a key part of Sefton’s approach to Prevent.
The Sefton Channel Panel is fundamental to this and is a voluntary safeguarding programme aimed at supporting those individuals identified as being vulnerable. As with other safeguarding practices, Channel is reliant on a multi-agency response and multi-disciplinary work to minimise and manage the risk to an individual. It draws on existing collaboration between local authorities, the LACC, police, statutory partners and the local community and has three objectives:
- Identify individuals at risk of being radicalisation or drawn into extremism
- Assess the nature and extent of the risk
- Develop the most appropriate support for the individuals concerned.
Local authorities (via Children's Social Care or Adult Safeguarding) receive Prevent concerns and process them as an appointed body, this is to ensure that social care safeguarding concerns are not missed, that there is no delay on concerns being raised/information being shared, and that the information is going to Prevent also.
Social Care can look at the concerns from a Safeguarding point, and the details of the referral will also be sent to Prevent colleagues.
Local Authority– If the local authority identify Prevent concerns from for example a telephone call from the public, or Prevent concerns from information received from a Police referral, Sefton local authority Services will then send the Prevent referral to the email address on the form, again any immediate Safeguarding issues should be highlighted to and dealt with by the appropriate professional, following the usual Sefton Council Local Authority process.
Partner agencies – Such as Health, Education etc., should be referring to the local authority as all referrals of concern in respect of PREVENT that are generated from within Sefton Council Local Authority should in the first instance, be directed to and recorded at Sefton Council Local Authority, highlighting any potential concerns. The concerns can then therefore be looked at from a Safeguarding perspective, but also be sent to the Prevent team.
More information about Channel can be found at: Channel Duty Guidance
All referrals of concern in respect of PREVENT that are generated from within Sefton Council Local Authority should in the first instance, be directed to and recorded at Sefton Social Care Services, highlighting any potential concerns:
- Upon receipt of a PREVENT referral, any immediate Safeguarding issues should be highlighted to and dealt with by the appropriate professional, following the usual Sefton Social Care Services process before completion of a PREVENT specific referral form.
- Having completed the PREVENT / Channel referral form with all the available details, it should be forwarded to Prevent@merseyside.pnn.police.uk (this is the referral email address to use, most secure)
- There is no need to conduct any checks with CHAT or partners with regards to the Terrorism or Domestic Extremism risk at this stage.
What happens next?
The referral will be assessed by North West Counter Terrorism Police officers and it may subsequently, be adopted as a multi-agency led case or it may be signposted out to other services or agencies if it does not meet threshold criteria.
If adopted as a multi-agency case, the LACC from the Merseyside & Cheshire Channel Team, will begin information gathering and it will be at this stage that they contact colleagues within CHAT and additional Sefton services to formulate the vulnerability assessment. The expected turn around to respond to information requests is 5 working days.
The case will then be discussed at a Channel Panel, a multi-agency meeting which will discuss and review the referral, gain consent for engagement and plan any appropriate bespoke support packages to reduce or mitigate vulnerabilities to radicalisation. This Panel will meet on a monthly basis to review the progress of the case, until such time as the individual is deemed to be no longer vulnerable to radicalisation or consent is withdrawn.
For Prevent the Sefton Safer Community Partnership (SSCP) will meet to oversee Sefton Council’s approach. It will assess ongoing performance against the Action Plan and be directly accountable.
Our Channel Multi-Agency Panels will hold operational responsibility for the same.
The Joint Chairs of Sefton Channel Panel are Chris White, Localities Team Manager and Nicola Driscoll Service Manager Children’s Social Care.
If you become aware of an individual that you believe may meet the criteria for consideration and there is no known worker for the individual you have a duty to report your concerns (see pathways and referral documents at the end of this strategy).
This document is aligned with, a number of National Acts, Strategies and Policies:-
- Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015
- Serious Crime Act 2015
- Modern Slavery Act 2015
- Contest (UK Counter Terrorism Strategy)
- National Prevent Strategy
- Prevent Duty for Specified Authorities
- Channel Duty Guidance 2015