Stronger Together - A new Aproach to Preventing Violent Extremism

Preventing Violent Extremism or ‘Prevent’ is one of the four key pillars of the Government’s CONTEST plan - the UK’s international counterterrorism strategy developed in response to the 7 July 2005 terror attacks on London, and revised in March this year. The purpose of Prevent is to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting violent extremism. It began with a £6 million Pathfinder Fund in October 2006, funded by Communities and Local Government (CLG), to support priority local authorities in developing programmes of activity to tackle violent extremism at the local level. It was, largely, welcomed by the local government community at the time, as recognition by central government of the importance of a community-based response to violent extremism and an understanding that an isolated security stance was insufficient. It became mainstreamed in June 2008 with the publication of the Government’s full Prevent Strategy alongside £45 million distributed through the Area Based Grant for the 2008-2011 period. Ninety-four local authorities currently receive the money, with a mean of £85,000 per authority.