Nottingham City Council will accept a grant of £127,979 from the Home Office.
The grant is intended to cover the Prevent posts, which are designed to help the city mitigate against radicalisation risks and improve compliance with the Prevent Duty, as outlined in the Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015.
The decision was taken to enable the city to use this funding to support its statutory duty to prevent violent extremism and mitigate additional risks.
The funding is a continuation and expansion of the funding secured and managed in the budget for Nottingham City in 2022-23.
The roles and outcomes from last year’s funding have resulted in significant improvements in the Home Office Benchmarking and have been delivered within budget.
The funding does not cover severance costs for staff, office costs, or administrative support for the multi-agency case conference (Channel) or Prevent Governance.
The Home Office expects this funding to support Prevent delivery rather than covering all of the Statutory Duty in the city.
The Home Office is undertaking additional due diligence on the second element of the funding expected this year, following the recommendation in the Independent Review of Prevent published in February 2023.
The Home Office has explained in previous letters that this funding for posts will continue in 2024-25. The funding is then subject to an assessment of risk before deciding on the following year’s funding.
Not accepting the money would leave the City Council to fund significant work to meet the statutory duty through core funding and risk a less effective Prevent offer with associated crime and safeguarding risks. It would also mandate a restructure or severance costs for the two staff funded under this grant agreement.
Following the Home Office’s additional due diligence, it is expected there will be a second portion of this grant (up to £67,421) to follow for local projects. The local grant process for deciding the prevent projects submitted to the Home Office has been through a Best Value process after a competitive bid stage.
The decision follows on from the Delegated Decision taken in March 2022 by the Portfolio Holder to accept funds for Prevent work. The Portfolio Holder has been briefed on this follow-on funding and the nature of the work Nottingham City Council anticipates funding with it.
The funding amount will support the extension of the two roles currently in post with the benefit of retained knowledge and continuity. The team is required to facilitate and develop action plans which mitigate against the threat of radical extremism in Nottingham City. The budget manager will need to put in place the appropriate monitoring and reporting processes to ensure adherence to the grant conditions and to avoid possible clawback of grant funding.
In the event of the grant not being extended, a plan needs to be in place to ensure that all costs are mitigated within the funding received and therefore does not impact the Medium Term Financial Plan within Communities.
The decision was taken by Ita Donovan, Director of Communities, Environment & Resident Services, on 23rd May 2023.
About Prevent
Prevent is a national safeguarding programme that supports people who are at risk of becoming involved with terrorism through radicalisation.
Radicalisation means someone is being encouraged to develop extreme views or beliefs in support of terrorist groups and activities.
There are different types of terrorism, and Prevent deals with all of them. Find out more about what terrorism means.
The most common types of terrorism in the UK are extreme right-wing terrorism and Islamist terrorism.
- Extreme right-wing terrorism may be inspired by groups such as National Action and Atomwaffen Division.
- Islamist terrorism may be inspired by groups such as Daesh or Al Qa’ida.
Prevent is run locally by experts who understand the risks and issues in their area, and how best to support their communities. These experts include local authorities, the police, charities and community organisations.
