Case studies

East London has a history of extremist groups operating in the area, which has on occasion manifested itself in terrorist activity. Local authorities in the region have been particularly concerned that young people may be vulnerable to extremist ideologies.

Local government has a key role to play in preventing people from being drawn into terrorism. The new Prevent duty for local authorities contained within the Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015, sets out the need for all local authorities and other specified authorities to have “due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”.

Calderdale Council has worked with taxi drivers to maximise the reach of its Prevent work.  It has been able to recruit dedicated staff, including a Prevent coordinator. The focus for the future will be working with women and schools.

Cornwall has put a big emphasis on helping tackle dangerous internet use. It has used an EU project to help parents keep their IT-savvy children safe. Prevent training is also being rolled out to groups such as local Scouts to ensure its impact is felt far-and-wide.

Greenwich has been working on this issue since 2012 and has used football as a medium to reach out to the local community. The project resulted in participants playing a friendly match against soldiers from Woolwich barracks where Lee Rigby was based when he was murdered. The council has also developed an interactive DVD for school children which is being rolled out nationally.

Birmingham City Council and its partners have concentrated on mainstreaming Prevent across all relevant service areas and, in particular, in schools and has appointed a schools resilience adviser to help them address the Prevent agenda.

Waltham Forest has made early intervention a priority as part of its Prevent work. One of it’s flagship programmes is ‘Digital Resilience’, an education resource for secondary school children and staff designed to safeguard young people from potentially harmful information or views online.

Under the previous Prevent regime Bristol established a successful partnership with the Muslim community called Building the Bridge. It is now redeveloping that scheme so it has a wider focus including setting up advisory groups to engage women and young people and tackle far-right extremism.