Town Hall ‘agreed to disagree’ with Home Office on counter-terror strategy

The council officer in charge of co-ordinating preventative anti-terrorism measures across the borough has revealed that the Town Hall “agreed to disagree” with the Home Office over part of its approach approach.

Tracey Thomas, who oversees the delivery of the Prevent strand of counter-terror strategy, revealed in a recent council meeting that it had come in for “criticism” from central government for having a year go by without a referral to multi-agency initiative Channel.

Channel aims to support vulnerable people at risk of radicalisation, who are invited to participate in a voluntary tailor-made intervention process if they find themselves referred to its multi-agency panel, with a range of activities on offer including mentoring, leadership skills and other practical assistance.

Thomas said at a July meeting of the Living in Hackney scrutiny commission: “In the whole of last year we didn’t have one Channel case, and the Home Office criticised us for that.

“They criticised us because they were saying we should have got more numbers of people who are subject to being radicalised in the borough.

“We got to a stalemate where we agreed to disagree. One of the things that we said we didn’t want to do is play a number-crunching game where we’re just sending numbers through.

“On a personal level, when we get a Prevent referral, the person who deals with that information is a police officer, and they put that information on the system.

“I don’t feel comfortable putting people on the system if it’s just something like two children at school exchanging something inappropriate.”

A recent peer review by the Home Office underlined that Thomas, as well as Hackney’s Prevent Education Officer, were “highly thought of across the partnership”, with the borough itself being marked out as “more resilient to radicalisation than many similar boroughs.”

The Home Office put the reason for Hackney’s “resilience” down to “a strong commitment to integration and cohesion over a long period of time”.

On further questioning by the Hackney Citizen, the Town Hall confirmed that the Channel referral process is exactly the same in Hackney as it is nationally.

Channel referrals go to the police, who then undertake a vulnerability assessment under the national vulnerability assessment framework.

According to the Town Hall, the reason Hackney has no-one on Channel is either because the vulnerability assessment conducted by the policy has not been met, or because the subject or parent of the subject of the referral has not given their consent, it being a voluntary process.

The Home Office has said that they do not set quotas on individual local authority Channel panels.

Councillors at the meeting questioned why Hackney is marked by the Home Office as a significantly higher risk area than other local authority areas and a priority for counter-terror funding, with commission chair Cllr Sharon Patrick (Lab, Kings Park) pointing out that the borough is “harmonious” in comparison with other places.

Thomas explained that the prioritisation stemmed from Hackney being surrounded by other high-risk boroughs in the so-called East London Cluster, citing an example in which a teacher in Waltham Forest was found to be “preparing [their students] for combat”, with four children from Hackney attending the same school.

She also pointed out that Hackney “many years ago” was home to supporters of individuals such as radical Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary, adding that East London is the target of large amounts of funding from the Home Office as a number of people convicted of terror offences come to the end of their prison sentences.

Prevent strategy in Hackney also seeks to tackle gang affiliation, with a recognition of similarities between the process of terrorist radicalisation and that of becoming involved with a gang.

Thomas spoke of the importance of the St Giles Trust’s Building Resilience Against Violence and Extremism (Brave) workshops as a means of combating the issue, which are targeted at schools who report concerns of young people becoming radicalised.

According to an update of Prevent strategy in Hackney, ten workshops were conducted in the borough over the past year, involving 313 people including teaching staff, students, and community representatives.

Thomas added that as actual counter-terrorism activity is “extremely low” compared to neighbouring boroughs, it was possible the Home Office could deprioritise the borough for its specific funding.

Prevent was published in 2011 with the aim of stopping people from becoming terrorists, but the policy has faced criticism from the Equality and Human Rights Commission over its alienating effect on Muslims, particularly young people and students.

The government has underlined that its overarching strategy Contest, of which Prevent is a part, seeks to respond to all forms of terrorism, regardless of ideology, and that while the threat of Islamist terrorism remains its primary focus, the threat of extreme right-wing terrorism is also growing.

According to Home Office data, in 2017/18, 44 per cent of those referred to a Channel panel were for concerns related to Islamist extremism, while 18 per cent were related to right wing extremism.

Forty-four per cent of those who were subsequently provided with support through the Channel programme were referred for concerns about right wing extremism.

Since 2012, around 1,300 people have been supported through the voluntary, confidential channel programme, with 84 per cent of those leaving Channel support in 2017/18 moving on with “no further counter-terror concerns”.

Cllr Caroline Selman (Lab, Woodberry Down), cabinet member for community safety, said: “There is a fundamental difference between people making Prevent referrals into us when they have safeguarding concerns about someone, which we would always encourage, and what constitutes a referral to Channel.

“The latter, in line with the national guidance, is only used in cases where the information received suggests there may be a genuine vulnerability to being radicalised and drawn into terrorism, and is thankfully not something we have had to instigate often in Hackney.

“For both of these interventions to be effective, it is important they are both used appropriately.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Prevent programme is fundamentally about safeguarding and supporting vulnerable individuals to stop them becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.

“Through the Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015, we placed Channel on a statutory footing to ensure it is delivered consistently in all areas and we expect all coordinators to take that duty seriously. However, we do not set any quotas of cases to be referred.”

An independent review of the Prevent programme was announced in January.