Agenda item

The Head of Stronger Communities and the Community Safety Partnership Officer will be in attendance to provide Members with an update on the Council's contribution to the PEVENT agenda.

The Head of Stronger Communities and the Community Safety Partnership Officer provided the Panel with an update on the PREVENT agenda. As part of the presentation the following points were made:

 

·         The Community Safety Officer advised the Panel that he was the Council’s lead officer for Prevent and reducing reoffending.

·         PREVENT was a safeguarding function, whose duty fell under s26 of the 2015 Counter Terrorism and Security Act. This Act placed a duty on Councils to safeguard those at risk of becoming radicalised.

·         The primary aim of PREVENT was to empower individuals and communities to resist extremist rhetoric. This also involved working with professionals and partners so they could identify relevant risks and vulnerabilities, and potentially make referrals to the CHANNEL programme. 

·         Individuals at risk of extremist rhetoric were from a wide demographic.

·         The CHANNEL element of PREVENT was voluntary and based on consent. 

·         PREVENT worked in a similar fashion to other crime prevention initiatives, such as trying to prevent gang related activities.

·         In Middlesbrough there was a multi-agency operational group known as the Bronze Group which met every two months. This group formed action plans to help reduce risk.

·         The group worked with the public to identify what risk factors to look out for.

·         The group recently reviewed its internal training plan, which was now five stages rather than three.

·         Promotion of PREVENT occurred through a number of different mediums, such as road shows, website material and campaigns with partners such as the NHS, CRC probation and youth services.

·         Actions plans were derived from a regional Risk Assessment with actions focused on the education of professionals and identifying new and emerging threats so that resilience could be built around high risk groups. An example was online gaming in that gangs could take advantage to radicalize young people in that environment. 

·         Example risk actions included work carried out with a range of diverse communities and the third sector, educational establishments and roadshows at James Cook Hospital and the Hill Street Centre.

·         There was a constant requirement to understand engagement needs with different communities.

·         Recent projects included working with the Learning Disabilities Community that utilised tools such as the Picture Exchange Communication System (PEX) to generate publicity that would be understandable to the Learning Disability Community and their carers. 

·         Different levels of training were provided and had recently been reviewed which would be rolled out in spring 2021. The Council also hosted Home Office training material on the PREVENT website.  

·         WRAP 3 training had been completed with a minimum of one Designated Safeguarding Lead per school and a lot of work had been completed around COVID resilience in the face of “Fake News.”

·         Face to face and virtual training had been delivered to schools and school governors.

·         Awareness raising was a large proportion of what PREVENT did, particularly around digital resilience.

·         Online safety awareness was planned with a virtual PREVENT session with foster carers.

 

The Head of Stronger communities provided the Panel with an update on CHANNEL and made the following points:

 

·         CHANNEL was a statutory duty placed on all Local Authorities and was a multi-agency approach to support those deemed to be at risk of extremist narrative. 

·         Nationally CHANNEL was piloted in 2007 and rolled out widely in 2012 and codified in legislation under the 2015 Counter Terrorism and Security Act.

·         CHANNEL was a safeguarding function with which had several key aims, such as identifying individuals at risk of being drawn into terrorism; to assess the nature and extent of the risk and to develop the most appropriate support plan. 

·         Local Authorities were required to carry out several tasks including the establishment of a CHANNEL panel which must have a Chair and Vice Chair. Currently the Chair was the Head of Stronger Communities and Vice Chair was Strategic Community Safety Manager.

·         The CHANNEL Panel must develop support plans for individuals, and give consideration to what other forums would be appropriate if CHANNEL was not.

·         The CHANNEL Panel also ensured that accurate records were kept regarding what decisions were made and procedures that were followed.

·         The CHANNEL Panel in Middlesbrough included members from the NHS, social workers, schools, colleges, Youth Offending Services, Early help, the Home Office as well as the Prison Service.

·         Both PREVENT and CHANNEL sat under the Community Safety Partnership providing a broad multi-agency approach. Both PREVENT and CHANNEL also sat within the Cleveland wide PREVENT framework. 

·         A referral to CHANNEL could be made from anywhere and assessed against set criteria. Should those criteria be met a CHANNEL Panel would be convened, with timescales and support plans put in place for that individual. This process was reviewed closely and the Panel was closed once the Panel achieved its aims for that individual. 

·         PREVENT now formed part of Council’s mandatory induction programme.

 

A Member queried if people were more vulnerable due to spending an increased amount of time at home due to the COVID Pandemic. It was confirmed that people were spending more time online and in some cases people were unable to discern the difference between genuine and untrue information. It was also confirmed that it was important for relevant professionals to be able to have physical contact with those at risk, where possible, to determine if an individual’s behaviors were changing due to potential radicalization.  

 

A Member queried if any updated PREVENT training would be offered to Councillors. It was confirmed that the Home Office was to shortly release new training products to Councils that Councillors would be able to access. 

 

ORDERED: That the information presented by noted.