Memorandum submitted by the Home Office
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
CONTEST is the Government's long-term strategy
for countering international terrorism. Details of the strategy
were first published in July 2006 and it is currently being refreshed.
The aim of CONTEST is to reduce the risk from international terrorism,
so that people can go about their daily lives freely and with
confidence. It is divided into four principal areas of work (supported
by a number of cross-cutting areas) to enable us to combat the
different aspects of trans-national terrorism more effectively.
These work-strands are:
— Pursue: stopping terrorist attacks;
— Prevent: stopping people becoming
terrorists or supporting violent extremism;
— Protect: strengthening our protection
against attack; and
— Prepare: mitigating the impact of
attacks.
1. INTRODUCTION
The Office for Security and Counter Terrorism
(OSCT) was established in 2007 in the Home Office, in order to
bring more cohesion and greater strategic capability to our fight
against international terrorism.
OSCT's primary responsibilities are to:
— Support the Home Secretary and other
Ministers in developing, directing, and implementing the UK's
counter-terrorist strategy (CONTEST) across Government;
— Deliver aspects of the counter-terrorism
strategy directly, such as legislation and protective security
policy;
— Enable and support key structural
developments, such as policing arrangements and border security;
— Manage counter-terrorism related
crises through the Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms (COBR);
— Facilitate the Home Secretary's statutory
oversight of Security Service; and
— Exercise oversight of / monitor,
on behalf of central Government, counter-terrorist operations
in the UK.
OSCT is led by a Director General and has six
Directorates:
(i) Prevent & RICU (the Research, Information
and Communications Unit) is responsible for implementing strategies
to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting violent extremism;
and for the strategic communications to support this;
(ii) Strategy, Planning & Change is
responsible for: setting strategic direction; programme and project
management services; corporate services; strategic oversight of
Police CT capability; and OSCT's Secretariat capability;
(iii) Prepare, Protect, & CBRNE (the Chemical,
Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosives Unit) is
responsible for implementing strategies on the Protect and Prepare
work-strands, as well as ensuring that science supports the delivery
of counter-terrorism;
(iv) Law, Security and International is
responsible for: Pursue policy and delivery; OSCT's international
engagement; interception and surveillance policy and casework;
and oversight of the Security Service;
(v) Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP)
is a mission-critical, large-scale cross-government programme
being delivered out of OSCT. IMP aims to maintain the UK's lawful
Interception and Communications Data capability; and
(vi) OSCT Olympic Safety and Security
is responsible for producing an integrated security strategy and
costed plan with the police, London 2012 organisers and other
security providers, which will deliver a safe, secure, and resilient
Olympics in 2012.
2. THE THREAT
TO THE
UK
The UK faces a serious and sustained threat
from acts of terrorism. The current UK national threat level is
SEVERE, indicating that an attack is "highly likely and possibly
without warning".
3. THE RESPONSE:
CONTEST
The Government's response to international terrorism
is well developed. Our long-term strategy, known as CONTEST, has
been in place since early 2003 and details were published in the
July 2006 Command Paper "Countering International Terrorism:
the United Kingdom's Strategy."[36]
Over the past year, the Government has been
reviewing and updating all aspects of CONTEST, based upon enhanced
experience of tackling the threat, lessons learned, and the evolving
international context. As different elements of this work have
been completed, they have been made public: for example, the new
approach to Prevent and the reviews of different aspects of protective
security. The Government plans to publish a detailed account of
the revised CONTEST strategy later this Spring.
The overall aim of CONTEST is to reduce the
risk from international terrorism, so that people can go about
their daily lives freely and with confidence. To achieve this,
CONTEST is divided into four main work-streams, each with its
own specific objective:
— Pursue: stopping terrorist attacks;
— Prevent: stopping people becoming
terrorists or supporting violent extremism;
— Protect: strengthening our protection
against attack; and
— Prepare: mitigating the impact of
attacks.
The Home Secretary has lead responsibility for
co-ordinating the strategy and is supported in this by OSCT.
Governance of the CONTEST Programme
Resourcing Counter—Terrorism
In 2008-09 annual spending on counter-terrorism
and intelligence exceeds £2 billion, which is double what
it was prior to 9/11. This will continue to rise over the CSR
period to £3½ billion by 2010-11, more than triple pre-9/11
levels.
Performance Management for Counter-Terrorism
A Counter-Terrorism Public Service Agreement
(PSA) has been agreed with the Treasury, which (for the first
time) covers the entire UK Counter-Terrorism effort. The agreement,
which is supported by the CONTEST Delivery Plans, has been developed
to ensure a better focus on delivery of the key counter terrorism
programmes across Government.
Local Delivery
The police's contribution to this PSA is being
measured through the APACS (Assessment of Policing and Community
Safety) performance framework. Where this is in partnership with
local authorities, these measures are mirrored in the national
indicators which may be selected by local authorities for inclusion
in their Local Area Agreements. OSCT has a key role in monitoring
the success of CONTEST through PSA and associated performance
measures.
4. PURSUE
The strategy across HMG
With the Police, the Security Service, and other
departments across Whitehall, the Home Office is working to make
it as difficult as possible for terrorists to operate in the UK
and thereby reduce the threat they pose to the UK, its interests,
and its allies.
The Home Office is responsible for ensuring
that the police and the agencies have the powers they need and
that the options for disruption are as wide and effective as possible.
Home Office responsibilities
— Legislation—Advice on existing
counter-terrorism legislation and the development and management
of new legislation.
— Proscription—The Terrorism
Act 2000 enables the Secretary of State to proscribe organisations
she believes are concerned in terrorism. Since 2006 this has included
organisations which have glorified terrorism.
— Control Orders—Preventative
measures that place tailored obligations on suspected terrorists
whom we cannot prosecute or deport in order to disrupt their terrorism-related
activity.
— Deportations with Assurances—negotiating
Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with foreign governments to
enable us to deport foreign nationals safely.
— Terrorist Financing—Measures/policies
to counter the financing of terrorism, including the development
of a cross-Whitehall strategy to identify terrorist facilitators
and funding operations, and disrupt terrorists' access to funds.
— International co-operation—Advancing
CT co-operation through policy development, representing the UK
in international fora.
5. PREVENT
The strategy across HMG
The aim of the Prevent workstream is to stop
people becoming terrorists or supporting violent extremism. The
Government's overall strategy for Prevent has undergone a refresh,
led by OSCT with input from key departments, and was agreed in
October 2007 by the Ministerial Committee on National Security,
International Relations and Development (Sub-Committee on Tackling
Extremism). Under this new strategy, delivery of Prevent will
be achieved through a new strategic framework with five distinct
aims and two enabling workstreams.
The five aims are:
(i) Undermining extremist ideology; supporting
mainstream voices;
(ii) Disrupting those who promote violent extremism;
strengthening vulnerable institutions;
(iii) Supporting individuals who are vulnerable
to recruitment by violent extremists; creating mechanisms for
supporting them;
(iv) Increasing the resilience of communities
to engage with and resist violent extremists; and
(v) Effectively addressing grievances whether
real or perceived.
The two enablers are:
(i) Developing understanding, analysis and evaluation;
and
(ii) Strategic communications.
Home Office Responsibilities
The OSCT Prevent teams have two main functions.
— leading on counter-radicalisation
in order to prevent terrorism by helping individuals and groups
to resist radicalisation and by disrupting the recruitment activities
of extremists; and
— coordinating Prevent activity across
government and works with the CONTEST Programme office to this
effect.
6. PROTECT
The strategy across HMG
The Protect work-stream of CONTEST aims to strengthen
our overall protection against terrorist attack. Following the
incidents in London and Glasgow in June and July 2007, the Prime
Minister asked Lord West, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Security
and Counter-terrorism in the Home Office, to review further measures
necessary to protect the public against terrorist attacks on crowded
places, transport infrastructure and critical national infrastructure.
He was assisted in his work on crowded places by the Hon. Member
for Newark and Retford (Patrick Mercer MP).
The outcome of Lord West's reviews has enabled
the Government to develop an improved Protect strategic framework
based on reducing vulnerability in eight sectors: the Critical
National Infrastructure; crowded places; transport; the UK Border;
hazardous sites and substances; personnel security to mitigate
hostile insider action; protecting individuals at risk of being
targeted by terrorists; and UK interests overseas. Our protective
security arrangements are kept under constant review including
in the light of developments in the attack methodologies that
terrorists are assessed to have the capability and intent to use.
Home Office Responsibilities
OSCT has lead responsibility for overall delivery
of the Protect programme as well as specific responsibilities
in the eight workstreams:
— Crowded Places—OSCT
is leading a new work programme on protecting people going about
their daily lives in crowded places.
— The Critical National Infrastructure
(CNI) —This is defined as the infrastructure assessed
to be necessary to maintain delivery of essential services to
the UK. OSCT, in conjunction with the Centre for the Protection
of National Infrastructure (CPNI), is responsible for leading
and co-ordinating the inter-departmental effort to protect the
CNI from physical and electronic attack and the threat from insiders.
Responsibility for addressing risks in particular sectors rests
with the lead Government Department that sponsors that sector.
— The transport system and its users—The
transport sector can be considered as three modes; aviation, land
transport and maritime. The protective security programme for
transport infrastructure is led by the Department for Transport
(TRANSEC), which works closely with the Home Office and CPNI.
— Hazardous sites and substances—OSCT
is responsible for leading this work programme. Its purpose is
to reduce the vulnerability of hazardous substances (chemical,
biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive) to terrorist
misuse and to reduce the vulnerability of those sites holding
them to terrorist attack.
— The UK Border—The Home
Office is responsible for strengthening border security against
terrorism. This includes fully exploiting the CT opportunities
provided by the UK Border Agency (ie from UK presence at ports
overseas and visa issuing points through to inland processes including
asylum, enforcement and deportation). It also involves ever-closer
working between the UK Border Agency and the police, and the implementation
of the e-Borders Programme which allows advance checks on travellers
arriving or leaving the UK against our watchlists. Currently more
than 30 million passenger movements are checked in this way, and
this will rise to 100 million movements by April 2009.
— Personnel security to mitigate
hostile insider action—OSCT, in conjunction with the
Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI), is
responsible for leading this work.
— Protection of individuals from
terrorism—The Home Office is responsible for protective
security for public figures and their residences.
— Reducing the vulnerability of
UK interests overseas—The Foreign and Commonwealth Office
is responsible for leading this work programme. It is delivered
through the provision of accurate public advice on the threat
from both domestic and international terrorism, the physical protection
of British diplomatic premises and personnel overseas, and the
development of key foreign governments' own protective capability.
The Home Office is closely involved in some aspects of this work,
in particular supporting capacity building overseas.
7. PREPARE
The strategy across HMG and Home Office Responsibilities
The aim of the PREPARE workstream is to ensure
that the UK is ready to respond to any terrorist attack on the
country and to mitigate its impact. It is part of the broader
National Resilience Programme, which is led by the Civil Contingencies
Secretariat in the Cabinet Office, and includes planning for responding
to and recovering from both natural hazards and man-made emergencies.
Within this programme, the Home Office is responsible for ensuring
that the country is well-prepared to manage the consequences of
terrorist attacks.
The objectives of the Prepare strategy are to
ensure that:
(i) capabilities are in place to enable the police
and other local emergency services to respond effectively to terrorist
incidents;
(ii) operators of the UK's critical national
infrastructure can continue to deliver their essential services
following terrorist incidents or, where these services are disrupted,
to restore them as quickly as possible; and
(iii) national, regional and local crisis management
structures are appropriately equipped and trained.
The Home Office has worked closely with the
police to strengthen their ability to provide a comprehensive
and coordinated policing response which can manage the consequences
of a terrorist attack alongside an effective investigative response.
This has drawn on lessons identified in previous terrorist incidents
as well as the Home Office National Counter-Terrorism Exercise
Programme.
In addition, the Home Office has put in a place
a programme that is delivering a growing capacity for the police
and other emergency services to deal with terrorist use of chemical,
biological or radiological weapons.
The Home Office also works closely with the
Cabinet Office in convening and running the Cabinet Office Briefing
Room (COBR) to provide strategic direction of the Government response
to any terrorist incident. The Ministry of Defence is part of
this response and can provide a number of niche capabilities in
support of the police if required. Our Armed Forces have specialist
CT capabilities in the Land, Maritime and Air environments which
can be employed in a range of scenario including, but not limited
to, the types of scenarios seen in Mumbai. Decisions to use military
resources in support of a police counter terrorism operation require
authorisation by Ministers.
8. CROSS—CUTTING
ASPECTS OF
CONTEST
Several aspects of the Government's counter-terrorism
activity apply to more than one strand of CONTEST and are given
specific attention to ensure the cross-cutting aspects are fully
effective. These include: working with partners to ensure practical
implementation of our strategy at local, national and international
levels; developing a substantial Police Counter-Terrorism Network—sufficient
to engage in the full range of counter-terrorism policing activities;
developing a security programme, closely aligned to CONTEST, to
further our understanding and ability to tackle the potential
terrorist threat to the 2012 Olympics; and implementing a cross-Government
strategy for countering the terrorist use of the internet.
The UK's strategy for countering terrorism is
supported by a number of key enablers involving science &
technology and engaging key partners outside Government (including
those in the private sector and academia). It is reinforced by
a communications approach (led by the Research, Information and
Communications Unit—RICU) with three key objectives: 1)
to expose the weaknesses of violent extremists' ideologies and
brands; 2) to promote and support credible alternatives; and 3)
to strengthen and protect the UK government through effective
communication.
January 2009
36 http://security.homeoffice.gov.uk/news-publications/publication-search/general/Contest-Strategy Back
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