Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what guidance her Department has issued to local authorities on (a) transparency and local scrutiny on how Prevent funding is spent and (b) which organisations receive it.

In 2023, the Home Office updated its assurance process to help ensure that local authorities are delivering their statutory Prevent duty in line with the Prevent duty guidance. This includes assurance of local authorities that receive Prevent funding due to being assessed as having high levels of terrorism threat and risk.

The ‘Prevent duty toolkit for local authorities’ outlines eight benchmarks that Prevent delivery is measured against and includes suggested examples of good and best practice.

The Home Office works with all local authority Prevent Leads in England, Wales and Scotland to complete a Prevent assurance exercise each year against 7 of the Prevent duty benchmarks. An assurance of the eighth benchmark, Channel, is subject to a separate process (the Channel Annual Assurance Statement).

This exercise provides local Prevent Partnerships and the Home Office with assurances that the Prevent duty is being met in proportion to the threat and risk in each area. It also helps to understand where there are gaps in Prevent delivery, to identify and share good practice, and to improve performance and standards.

Prevent also funds Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to deliver projects in communities. CSOs in receipt of Prevent funding are required to demonstrate that outcomes they have delivered contribute to Prevent’s overall aim: to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.

As a requirement of Prevent funding, every CSO must adhere to best practice principles for programme design, delivery and monitoring and evaluation. All project providers are subject to random project delivery observation from the Home Office, and comprehensive due diligence is completed for all CSOs that receive Prevent funding.

The groups we work with are vital partners in protecting society from the dangers of radicalisation, and providing support to people who are being radicalised.