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Memorandum from the Association of Police Authorities (PVE 28)
Summary § The Prevent Strategy is welcomed as one of the ways of addressing violent extremism § The funding formula for the allocation of Prevent resources needs to be reviewed to reflect circumstances other than Muslim population figures § Regional Government Offices should be encouraged to actively engage police authorities in strategic discussions on Prevent § The Comprehensive Area Assessment process should be utilised to ensure all relevant partners are fully engaged in local Prevent partnerships and delivery § A fundamental responsibility of the police in relation to Prevent is the development of local Prevent partnerships and delivery of activity. However, it needs to be recognised that policing on Prevent covers a breadth of activity requiring a range of different partnership relations, from community engagement at a neighbourhood policing level to the operational work of Counter-Terrorism Units and Counter-Terrorism Intelligence Units § Consultation and engagement with communities on matters of policing is a responsibility of police authorities and local partners and Government Offices should be directed to include police authorities in any proposed activity § The APA believes that performance management in relation to Prevent is not sufficiently robust to ensure organisations can be held to account for their delivery § The APA believes that approaches to Prevent and community cohesion should be better distinguished in order to ensure that Government funding for Prevent is used locally specifically for Prevent objectives
Introduction 1. The Association of Police Authorities (APA) is generally supportive of the Government's approach to Prevent, and has recognised the critical importance of Prevent in policing. The APA has established a dedicated post of Strategic Policy Adviser on Prevent to support police authorities in delivering on Prevent, and to represent the APA nationally. 2. Underpinning many of the responses to the consultation questions is the APA view that Prevent is an extremely broad concept, and difficult to consider as one notion. At one end of the spectrum it is about communities and has real synergy with community cohesion, whilst at the other, it is hard edged, operational, often bespoke to an individual, and can be at odds with community cohesion. We would suggest that there needs to be more of an acknowledgement of the breadth of Prevent work.
3. It is important to draw to the attention of the committee that the primary concern of police authorities in relation to Prevent is policing. Additional growth in police resources for Prevent has principally come from Home Office OSCT. However, police forces and Basic Command Units are engaged in partnership activity at a regional and local level, many of them specifically in relation to CLG PVE funding. In addition police authorities themselves often take on roles within the development and management of strategic partnership's that oversee Prevent and a number consult and engage with local communities specifically on Prevent.
Is the Prevent programme the right way of addressing the problem of violent extremism, or are there better ways of doing it? 4. Prevent is one of the ways of addressing the problem of violent extremism, along with other elements of the CONTEST strategy, and also longer term work on cohesion. From a policing perspective there is a fine balance to be sought between Prevent and Pursue, and the overall imperative is to stop terrorist attacks.
5. The delivery of Prevent is sometimes perceived locally as separate programmes of activity, with a policing response and a local authority response, often not related to each other. In many areas that have received PVE funding this perception of Prevent being either a 'security' response on one hand or a 'community' approach on the other has been a cause for differences in opinion. In some areas the delivery of CLG funded Prevent work is separated from police Prevent delivery, with many local authorities believing that because of Muslim community perceptions about being 'spied' upon the involvement of policing has a negative impact upon community confidence and cohesion. This may be compounded by OSCT ownership of Prevent strategy objectives 2 & 3, and CLG ownership of Objectives 1,3, & 5. 6. Funding allocated to date through CLG has been based largely upon the size of Muslim population within an area and not sufficiently based on assessed 'risk'. A number of areas that will not have received funding according to this criterion have high potential risk of large scale national collateral damage. Whilst recognising that this is to an extent a Protect and Prepare issue, future funding that was also based upon potential target sites would be welcomed. In addition funding that also recognised risks associated with other extremisms would be welcomed.
7. There is a real sense amongst many police authorities that there is not a sufficiently co-ordinate message from central government departments. Regional Government Offices should be involving police authorities in strategic discussions to ensure that wherever appropriate local Prevent activity is delivered, and perceived to be delivered, in genuine partnership.
8. Reassurance is required that co-ordinate oversight ensures that relevant partners are contributing fully, and that this oversight process exposes situations where this is not occurring so that they can be addressed. The Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) process and an increased emphasis on the measurement of councils in relation to NI35 and NI36 should be the cornerstone of Government Offices being able to understand and address deficiencies in local delivery. Fundamental to this is the acceptance by partners that Prevent is a shared responsibility and not a police led issue.
9. From the perspective of policing the perception of a 'security versus community' approach to Prevent is erroneous. Prevent policing extends from work embedded in neighbourhood policing, including community engagement, gathering community intelligence and working with the most vulnerable groups in communities, through to Special Branch and Counter-Terrorism Units and Counter-Terrorism Intelligence Units, and necessarily covers all of the 'Prevent spectrum'.
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? 10. It is generally accepted that there is not a single identifiable pathway to radicalisation and violent extremism, and the APA acknowledges that there are significant practitioner and academic research projects that have been initiated to gain a better understanding of this complex area. The Channel Project is one example where this 'imperfect' understanding of vulnerability to extremism is being applied in a practical context. Equally, many local PVE funded projects recognise some of the socio-economic factors that may give rise to a vulnerability to extremism, including lack of educational or employment opportunities for communities, and have sought to address those. The APA supports an approach that does not adopt a simplistic understanding of factors related to vulnerability and could potentially lead to individuals being wrongly tagged with the label of extremist. We welcome approaches within Channel that seek to utilise robust intelligence and adopt a safeguarding approach with the equal input of partner expertise into the identification and referral process.
11. In terms of the targeting of the Prevent programme, much of the CLG work is felt to address broader issues of cohesion and provision of opportunity through, for example, the establishment of Muslim women's groups or sporting activity for young Muslims. While this is considered valuable and has a relationship to Prevent strategy objectives 1,3 and 5, many police authorities feel that it does not address or tackle the most vulnerable or radicalised individuals. Prevent policing is more focused upon Prevent objectives 2 & 3 through, for example, Channel Project and CTU / CTIU activity.
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? 12. Police authorities recognise that there is a complex and densely occupied landscape in terms of national stakeholders for government to communicate and engage with. Criticism is often levelled at government for engagement with those that some consider not to share liberal democratic values, but equally there has been adverse reaction to Government engagement with Muslim organisations such as the Quilliam Foundation. 13. The government's strategy to devolve engagement activity to a local level through CLG funding is welcomed and considered the most approporiate response. More should be done through Government Offices to ensure that this engagement is co-ordinate across a range of different regional and local agencies, including police, police authority, local authority, and other partners. A number of police authorities have demonstrated significant levels of engagement that has subsequently informed the police in relation to Prevent.
Is the necessary advice and expertise available to local authorities on how to implement and evaluate the programme? 14. It is recognised that significant amounts of guidance advice has been developed and distributed to local authorities and other partners, and that significant learning and development work is ongoing around Prevent. The APA also recognise the contribution of the LGA and IDeA in seeking to develop learning in the sector. The APA has made its own contribution to enhancing the advice and expertise available to police authorities through the appointment of a Strategic Policy Adviser on Prevent. The recent CLG guidance, 'Evaluating local Prevent projects and programmes' will prove useful for monitoring and evaluating local projects and programmes.
15. However, police authorities do feel that there are still gaps in relation to the performance management of Prevent, with too little emphasis on outcome measures of success. We are aware of ongoing work looking at success measures through various bodies such as CLG and ACPO, and would urge a concerted effort to jointly agree and develop robust performance management measures, in addition to National Indicator 35, to allow organisations, and more importantly the public, to judge the success of Prevent activity.
Are the objectives of the 'Prevent' agenda being communicated effectively to those at whom it is aimed? 16. Central government has made repeated efforts to communicate the objectives, and this is supported on a day to day basis by RICU. Ultimately, many Muslim communities will not agree with the Prevent agenda and feel that they are being targeted. Ultimately communications efforts aimed at these sections of communities may not be successful. 17. The APA believes that the level of Prevent activity in any area should be proportionate and tailored to the levels and type of risk identified, be that Al-Qaida influenced ideology or other types of extremism, and supports government efforts to communicate this message effectively
18. The notion that Prevent is about surveillance and monitoring of Muslim communities is deeply ingrained in some communities and will be difficult to shift. This particularly impacts upon policing in relation to community engagement and neighbourhood policing.
19. More positively many communities have recognised that there are issues with extremism and have actively responded to and participated in the Prevent agenda.
20. The APA believes that there is an ongoing need to raise awareness of Prevent, and CONTEST more broadly, amongst all communities, both to reassure those communities and to facilitate effective community intelligence and the identification of risk.
Is the Government seeking, and obtaining, appropriate advice on how to achieve the goals of the 'Prevent' programme? 21. The APA is satisfied that the Government has sought the views and advice of a very broad range of stakeholders in relation to achieving Prevent objectives. From a policing perspective there is input in to cross-governmental policy and programme development through ACPO, APA and the NPIA
22. The APA would urge central Government to ensure that this broad representation of stakeholder advice is replicated at a regional and local level.
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?
23. This relates to the point above about
effectively measuring success, and the APA believes that while output measures
can demonstrate value for money aspects, there is at present no satisfactory
outcome success measure to adequately demonstrate value for money.
Unfortunately, this has allowed organisations such as the Taxpayer's
24. The issue of assessing effectiveness and value for money is a particular problem for police authorities in relation to ensuring that the police deliver an effective and efficient service in relation to Prevent.
25. Whether or not reactions to the Prevent programme were adequately predicted or gauged by Government is a moot point. The important issue for the APA is that where specific concerns are raised by communities about Prevent they are listened to and addressed at the appropriate level. Recent controversy around Section 44 stops is a prime example of this.
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?
26. The APA is uncertain that there is general widespread understanding that Prevent has a specific purpose in reducing the threat of violent extremism, and that this differs considerably from broader cohesion and integration objectives. Much of the PVE funded project work in local areas does not have a specific enough focus upon preventing violent extremism, and many police authorities question whether, in practice, there is any real difference between Prevent and community cohesion. We feel that any future plans to submerge Prevent into broader community cohesion work are worrying. Some of the social science research shows that this will miss those individuals who may already be on a radical pathway and who can only be diverted by a bespoke individual intervention such as that provided by Channel projects.
September 2009 |