Memorandum from Birmingham City Council
(PVE 25)
SUMMARY
— Birmingham is committed to the Prevent
programme, as it currently stands, and adopts its approach to
delivering the agenda in accordance.
— Our Delivery Plan utilises intelligence
from West Midlands Police (eg Counter-Terrorism Local Profile)
in order to target funding and provision as necessary to support
vulnerable communities and institutions.
— Birmingham has governance structures
in place to ensure that communities are represented at key decision
making levels regarding delivery of Prevent.
— 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.
— 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.
— 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.
— 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 (eg "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 seven 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 three.
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 (2008-11). 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 (ie 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
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