Memorandum from Birmingham City Council (PVE 25)

Summary

 

w Birmingham is committed to the Prevent programme, as it currently stands, and adopts its approach to delivering the agenda in accordance.

w Our Delivery Plan utilises intelligence from West Midlands Police (e.g. Counter-Terrorism Local Profile) in order to target funding and provision as necessary to support vulnerable communities and institutions.

w Birmingham has governance structures in place to ensure that communities are represented at key decision making levels regarding delivery of Prevent.

w Birmingham has access to advice and expertise on how to implement and evaluate Prevent, and has used this provision as needed. Guidance issued has been very useful in producing the Delivery Plan and planning for the evaluation that will take place regarding how effective the plan is and has been.

w Birmingham has systems in place to monitor Prevent delivery and make sure that any targets set are being met. We also have an evaluation plan in place to look at short and long term impacts the Delivery Plan.

w Birmingham delivers Prevent as its own programme (and has specific resources and governance structures to do so), although we recognise links with other relevant areas such as community cohesion and respond accordingly.

w The PVE Steering Group is able to bring together all funding streams thereby ensuring synergy and no duplication.

 

 

1. Is the Prevent programme the right way of addressing the problem of violent extremism, or are there better ways of doing it?

 

1.1. Birmingham is committed to delivering the Prevent programme and believes that Prevent should stand as it's own strategy and not be combined with other related areas such as community cohesion (although we recognise that these links do exist and respond accordingly). Our approach to delivering Prevent therefore reflects this belief by having a direct approach with those it is engaging with, both partner organisations and the community. For example, when tendering for new projects to deliver interventions all applications must contain details of how their projects link in with the Prevent strategy and the specific areas of delivery that we are looking at (e.g. 'reclaiming Islam'). West Midlands Police Security & Partnership Officers work within communities, as part of the Counter-Terrorism Unit, to assist in delivering the Prevent agenda. Their role is to provide an overt, visible and accessible link between the covert counter-terrorism function, the Police, communities and partners.

1.2. Birmingham recognises that there is a threat and risk as borne out by terrorism arrests and convictions within the area.

 

2. How robust is the Government's analysis of the factors which lead people to become involved in violent extremism? Is the 'Prevent' programme appropriately targeted to address the most important of those factors?

 

2.1. Although there is no single profile of a violent extremist, or a single pathway that can lead to becoming radicalised, Birmingham has based its Delivery Plan upon intelligence from West Midlands Police's strategic assessment and Counter-Terrorism Local Profile in order to target funding and interventions in appropriate areas and institutions to strengthen their resilience to violent extremism. Projects and interventions being delivered in such areas fall under the 7 objectives defined in the Prevent strategy. As more interventions are being set up and delivered, we are finding it easier to identify what works well and to also look at potential areas to build upon (for example, mental health services) in order to further assist in building resilience and supporting vulnerable individuals.

 

3. How appropriate, and how effective, is the Government's strategy for engaging with communities? Has the Government been speaking to the right people? Has its programme reached those at whom it is -or should be- aimed?

 

3.1. Birmingham's current governance structure in relation to delivering Prevent includes representation from not only Local Authority and Police, but also from community organisations. Member from such organisations sit on the PVE Steering Group, which has responsibility to ensure the programme delivers within its agreed parameters (cost, timescale, impact), resolve the strategic and directional issues between projects which need the input and agreement of senior stakeholders to progress the integration into mainstream, and provide assurance. Members of community organisations sit on the Project Assessment Panel, which review all Prevent-funded project applications and makes recommendations to the PVE Steering Group. The Prevent Programme Manager also attends Local Delivery Groups in each of the identified vulnerable constituencies within Birmingham, which includes representation from Local Authority as well as local partner organisations that operate in the specific constituency, to ensure that Prevent agenda is included in discussions and any future plans for the areas. This therefore ensures that communities within Birmingham are represented at key decision making levels in terms of how funding should be distributed, and what areas of work need to take place to support vulnerable communities.

 

4. Is the necessary advice and expertise available to local authorities on how to implement and evaluate the programme?

 

4.1. Guidance from CLG has been helpful in producing Birmingham's Delivery Plan and providing resources to use in order to evaluate projects and the whole delivery plan. Birmingham will be using the evaluation guidance to run a workshop with partners delivering projects around the resources available and how to evaluate their projects accordingly. The evaluation guidance has also been used to produce an evaluation plan to look at short-term, internal evaluation of the Delivery Plan in order to inform National Indicator 35 self-assessment, as well as planning a longer-term evaluation to look at the whole three year's worth of delivery within Birmingham.

4.2. Guidance issued around National Indicator 35 has proved invaluable as it has provided the ability to effectively measure performance against the criteria and recognise gaps in delivery, which will enable performance to improve.

 

5. Are the objectives of the 'Prevent' agenda being communicated effectively to those at whom it is aimed?

 

5.1. Please refer to answer to question 3.

5.2. We also believe that other local authorities should recognise the threat/risk and embrace Prevent. Only by tackling the issues 'head-on' whilst simultaneously stating that the aim is to support Muslim communities will we be able to prevail. Those LAs who refuse to accept Prevent, or through perceived sensitivities do not discuss the issues with their communities and therefore divert funding to broader community cohesion issues, make the task more difficult for all of us.

 

6. Is the Government seeking, and obtaining, appropriate advice on how to achieve the goals of the 'Prevent' programme?

 

6.1. Advice need to be credible and moderate, though pushing at the boundaries of moderate. Young people listen to those groups/individuals who have been 'over the edge' and come back. The Government has to differentiate about what is the 'credible' element appropriate to - the Government or the audience - and recognise that it should always be the audience.

6.2. The Government should be careful as to whom it openly endorses and engages, as this makes the endorsed group not credible within the community.

 

7. How effectively has the Government evaluated the effectiveness of the programme and the value for money which is being obtained from it? Have reactions to the programme been adequately gauged?

 

7.1. Birmingham have robust systems in place for monitoring project progress against Service Level Agreements and have now produced an evaluation plan which covers the duration of the funding period (2008 - 2011). The evaluation plan includes both internal and external evaluation of the Prevent Delivery Plan and will look at effectiveness, value for money and community perception of Prevent, and will help to inform future work to be undertaken within Birmingham. This will add to mainstreaming the delivery of Prevent objectives, therefore making us able to defend any potential criticism due to our strict governance and management of funding.

 

8. Is there adequate differentiation between what should be achieved through the Prevent programme and the priorities that concern related, but distinct, policy frameworks such as cohesion and integration?

 

8.1. Birmingham delivers Prevent as its own programme (and has specific resources and governance structures to do so), although we recognise links with other relevant areas such as community cohesion and respond accordingly.

8.2. Although there are obvious links between Prevent and Community Cohesion, Prevent should remain as a distinctly separate agenda. By integrating the two it serves to lessen the importance of Prevent in order to appease Muslim communities. This may be viable and desirable in some local authority areas. In Birmingham we have tackled the Prevent agenda head on, in that the Muslim communities are aware that there is a very threat and risk from violent extremists (i.e. Operation Gamble and other terrorist arrests/convictions), and that the LA and Police have a Prevent strategy which is there to support them. By being very open and honest about our engagement and intentions this has helped to dispel any negative/adverse feelings about the communities being stigmatised and spied upon. There is an element within the Paper which mentions the threat of BNP/Far Right extremism which is not being addressed by the Prevent agenda. In Birmingham we can say that we recognise the threat from BNP/Far Right extremism also, and as a result have commissioned two PVE projects to look at this very issue in Kingstanding and Shard End.

 

September 2009