Attachment 4

Borough Community Relations Advisory Group -- 3 Feb 2010

Preventing Violent Extremism - Building Resilient Communities

Report by the Chief Community Safety Officer

Introduction

This report provides the BCRAG with information about the Government's approach to protecting the UK from international terrorism as expressed in its CONTEST strategy and the action being taken locally to address this issue.

This is intended to form the background for a discussion on what the BCRAG might be able to do to support local initiatives.

For information and comment

Background

In March 2009 the Government launched its refreshed CONTEST strategy for countering international terrorism. This contains four elements:

Pursue -- disrupting terrorist operations in the UK and overseas and prosecuting those responsible

Prevent -- developing a deeper understanding of how individuals become radicalised and preventing people from becoming terrorists or supporting violent extremism

Protect -- strengthening possible terrorist targets (including crowded public places, transport hubs and essential services) and tightening controls at UK borders to make it harder for terrorists to enter the country

Prepare -- building the resilience network in the country to ensure recovery from a terrorist attack

The focus of work locally is on the Prevent strand and this is the main subject of the report.

Reference is often made to threat levels. These were revised a few years ago and are now as follows:

critical -- an attack is expected imminently

severe -- an attack is highly likely

substantial -- an attack is a strong possibility

moderate -- an attack is possible but not likely

low -- an attack is unlikely

The current level in the UK is Severe. Up until very recently it was Substantial.

The Government's Prevent strategy contains the following elements:

challenge the ideology behind violent extremism and support mainstream voices

disrupt those who promote violent extremism and support the places where they operate

support individuals who are vulnerable to recruitment, or have already been recruited, by violent extremists

increase the resilience of communities to violent extremism

address the grievances which ideologues are exploiting

There are also two cross cutting strands to (i) develop supporting intelligence, analysis and information and (ii) improve strategic communication.

The Government considers this an important area of work. The last year has seen a large increase in the number of government statements, letters to local authorities from Ministers and Senior Civil Servants, e-mail traffic and requests for information.

Local Approach

Locally this work in managed through the:

Responsible Cabinet Member -- Councillor Lightfoot

Strategic Group - the Community Safety Programme Board (CSPB)

Operational Group -- Preventing Violent Extremism Action Group (PVEAG)

Policy

The CSPB has agreed that in pursuing the objectives of the Government's prevent strategy:

tackling violent extremism is a long-term issue that will require sustained activity over a prolonged period of time

whilst it will be important to make use of additional government funds to help prevent violent extremism, the main focus should be on how public agencies operating in the area can use their mainstream resources to tackle this issue

the PVEAG should focus on work with vulnerable individuals, organisations and communities

As an overall approach the CSPB expects work with individuals to have early outcomes whereas work with organisations and communities is likely to take longer to produce significant outcomes.

Resources

The Government has made additional funds available to the Council to support work on preventing violent extremism although this is not ring-fenced for this purpose and the Council can use these resources at its own discretion. This funding is viewed locally as a resource to be drawn on to support short/medium term activity especially as it is not known whether it will continue beyond 2010/11.

The additional sum made available in 2009/10 is £193,292. The indicative sum for 2010/11 is £256,830.

The Council has agreed that it will consider recommendations from the PVEAG to support work that fits in with the Government's overall strategy and is focused on work with vulnerable individuals, organisations and communities. In particular the Council wishes to support work that will develop Resilient Communities and it is using this phrase to describe its funding in this area rather than Preventing Violent Extremism.

The Youth Offending Team has also received support from the Youth Justice Board to support the work with young people at risk of becoming involved in violent extremism.

Summary of initiatives

The main initiatives currently underway or being planned are set out below:

Training for front-line staff to help them identify, cope with and support vulnerable individuals

Interventions to support vulnerable young offenders

Rolling out in schools the Learning Together to be Safe toolkit on the prevention of violent extremism

Engagement through mainstream youth services with individuals potentially at risk of becoming involved in violent extremism

Support for the Forum of Faiths to support their work in developing interfaith understanding and tolerance

Development of a detailed profile of the Muslim community in the Royal Borough and how it currently engages with public agencies

Preparation of a report on existing services for the Muslim community

Placing greater emphasis on Islamic arts and culture in the Council's cultural and arts programme

Supporting the work of the Dalgarno Neighbourhood Trust, `The Edge' theatre project and the Moroccan Community Welfare Group

Work with further education colleges in the borough

Discussion

A discussion on what the BCRAG might be able to do to help prevent violent extremism and support building resilient communities would be helpful.

For information and comment

Graham Taylor

Chief Community Safety Officer