Prevent Update 2026 - Report
Renfrewshire Council · 19 May 2026
Back to Communities and Housing Policy Board — 19 May 2026 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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PUBLIC ___________________________________________________________________ To: Communities and Housing Policy Board On: 19 May 2026 ___________________________________________________________________ Report by: Director of Environment, Housing and Infrastructure ___________________________________________________________________ Heading: Prevent Update 2026 ___________________________________________________________________ 1. Summary 1.1 This report provides an update a number of key areas of work overseen by the Community Protection (Prevent) Steering Group and includes information and updates in relation to Counter Terrorism. 1.2 Prevent is part of the UK Government’s Counter Terrorism Strategy which is known as CONTEST. The overall aim of the strategy is to reduce the risk from terrorism to the UK, it’s citizens and interests overseas, so that people can go about their lives freely and with confidence. 1.3 The aim of Prevent is to stop people becoming radicalised and supporting terrorism. This also supports rehabilitation and disengagement of those already involved in terrorism. 1.4 This provides a framework to allow multi-agency working from a variety of sectors including NHS, educational settings, the Scottish Prison Service and community justice services. 1.5 All local authorities in Scotland have a legal duty to deliver Prevent in their area. This includes oversight for Prevent delivery in schools, care settings, through health and social care partnerships and community justice services. 1.6 Renfrewshire Council work with partners to encourage early intervention to protect the public, prevent crime and promote strong integrated communities.
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PUBLIC 1.7 The council also has a duty to manage a process to help people who are at risk of being drawn into terrorism or violent extremism. In Scotland these are known as Prevent Multi-Agency Panels. ___________________________________________________________________ 2. Recommendations It is recommended that the Communities and Housing Policy Board: 2.1 Notes the content of the report and that regular updates on any changes in the PREVENT landscape will be reported back to future Policy Boards. ___________________________________________________________________ 3. Background 3.1 Prevent is one of the four pillars of the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy, Contest. The overall aim of the strategy is to reduce the risk from terrorism to the UK, it’s citizens and interests oversees so that people can go about their lives freely and with confidence. Prevent is about stopping people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. It sits alongside long-established safeguarding duties on professionals to protect people from a range of other harms, such as substance abuse, involvement in gangs, and physical and sexual exploitation. Prevent seeks to intervene early and ensure that people who are susceptible to radicalisation to terrorism are supported as they would be under safeguarding processes. 3.2 Prevent aims to: • Tackle the ideological causes of terrorism, • Intervene early to support people susceptible to radicalisation, and • Enable people already engaged in ideological beliefs to disengage and rehabilitate. This also provides a framework to allow multi-agency working from a variety of sectors including NHS, colleges, universities, education services, the Scottish Prison Service and community justice services. 3.3 Whilst it is recognised that the PREVENT space does not have the same scale of challenge that other parts of the United Kingdom do it is important that local authorities continue to play an active role in this field. The numbers below need to be seen in the wider UK context which is significantly more challenging than the position in Scotland. The council has a duty to manage a process to help people who are at risk of being drawn into terrorism or violent extremism. In Scotland these are known as Prevent Multi-Agency Panels (PMAPS). In Renfrewshire the following investigations took place in 2025:
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PUBLIC • REFRACT Logs: A total of 27 REFRACT intelligence logs relating to individuals or incidents were recorded in the first half of the year (14 in Q1; 13 in Q2). The "logs" refer to the standard police intelligence logs where information relating to specific counter-terrorism operations is recorded. These records are part of the intelligence management process used to submit, evaluate, and disseminate information while ensuring an audit trail. • Operational Status: While intelligence monitoring remained high, the group confirmed there were 8 Prevent investigations in Renfrewshire during the reporting period. • Referral Trends: The PMAP caseload has seen an increase from 5 cases in 2024 to 8 cases in 2025. 3.4 When a PMAP case concludes, it typically means that the individual is no longer considered at immediate risk of being drawn into terrorism or radicalisation. There are three options which are considered when closing a case: • Conclusion: The panel creates an exit plan to ensure the person has ongoing support, where required, from services like school, GP, or social work, moving away from specialist counter-terrorism intervention. • Final review: A formal review is usually conducted at the point of closure to document the progress made and the reduction in risk levels. Police provide closure document for records. • Follow-up checks: Standard procedure involves a 6-month and 12-month review after the case is closed to ensure the individual hasn’t slipped back into vulnerable patterns. There are currently 4 live cases with a further 4 cases still open to 6 & 12 month reviews. 3.5 Training and Capacity Building Renfrewshire’s Prevent Steering Group successfully expanded the reach of Prevent and Counter-Terrorism (CT) training across several sectors: • Law Enforcement: Completed a series of Prevent and CT inputs for all police officers in K Division. • Education and Care: Training delivered to staff at The Good Shepherd and Kibble. o Specific inputs provided regarding "Incels" in childcare settings. o Prevent presentations delivered to head teachers.
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PUBLIC • Third Sector/Private Sector: CT awareness and PREVENT training arranged for Blue Triangle staff. o Mail handling security inputs coordinated with West College Scotland (WCS) via a Counter Terrorism Security Advisor (CTSA). • Major Events: A dedicated CONTEST Day was held on August 26, 2025, at St Mirren Park, focusing on Prevent, Protect, and Martyn’s Law. 4. National and Scottish Threat Level 4.1 The UK National Threat Level remains at SUBSTANTIAL – an attack is likely. The UK threat continues to be dominated by self-initiated terrorists. The threat level system reflects the threat posed by all forms of terrorism, irrespective of ideology. 4.2 Scotland continues to face high and sustained counter-terrorism demand, with Pursue activity at its highest level in five years and Prevent referrals rising by 42% in 2024–25, now 60% above the five-year average. This reflects increasing pressure across police and partner agencies, driven by global geopolitical instability, polarisation, and the growing use of emerging technologies such as AI to support radicalisation and extremist propaganda. Casework is increasingly complex, with evolving safeguarding challenges requiring robust multi-agency responses. 4.3 There is a notable and concerning rise in Children and Young People (CYP) engaging in CT-relevant activity. CYP can present a credible violent extremist threat, with Extreme Right-Wing Terrorism (ERWT) the dominant ideology, followed by Islamist extremism. Recent convictions of youth offenders underline the seriousness of this risk and the need for early identification and intervention, particularly through education, policing and family awareness. 4.4 The Islamist terrorism threat remains high, primarily from self-initiated actors using low-sophistication attack methods, with international events—especially in the Middle East—continuing to act as grievance drivers. ERWT remains a consistent and credible threat, increasingly characterised by mixed ideologies, fixation on violence, misogyny and online-driven radicalisation, particularly among CYP. 4.5 Other threats include continued fundraising activity linked to the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) and Northern Ireland-related groups, while left-wing and single-issue terrorism remains low-level. The proscription of Palestine Action has led to increased protest-related activity and terrorism legislation breaches in Scotland, with potential for further escalation depending on legal outcomes.
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PUBLIC 5. Prevent Duty Assurance 2025 5.1 As part of the Prevent duty refresh, the Home Office and Scottish Government have updated the assurance process to help ensure that local authorities are delivering their statutory Prevent duty in line with the Prevent duty guidance. The new assurance process outlines the six benchmarks Prevent delivery is measured against and includes suggested examples of good and best practice. It is designed for local authorities to assure themselves via a self- assessment that they are effectively delivering their statutory duty. 5.2 As part of the process the following strengths were identified as part of our Prevent delivery for financial year 2024/25: • Senior oversight and Prevent partnership – there are strong governance structures in place to ensure the Local Authority senior management is well informed and Prevent features in multiple organisational and multi agency forums allowing for appropriate reporting. • Training – Prevent training is mandatory for all staff and hosted on the Local Authority learning platform ensuring the workforce is aware of their statutory duty. To date 6,807 Renfrewshire Council employees have completed the Prevent Awareness Training. • Referral pathway – there is clear information available to staff about how to put a referral in utilising internal web pages and an external webpage to direct members of the public on how to report concerns. This includes contact details for the Local Authority. 5.3 The process also identified the following actions/recommendations to assist in improving Prevent delivery, namely: • Risk assessment – to develop the written situational risk assessment to address national, regional and local risks and introduce an action plan to set out how the Local Authority and partners will mitigate any risk identified. A new risk assessment has been developed and is included at Appendix 1. • Reducing permissive environments – to engage with venue hire staff/facilities management to provide awareness of Prevent and consider an approach to due diligence at the point of booking. One Ren have updated their venue hire policy. The policy has been developed alongside updated hire forms and refreshed T&Cs to reflect additional diligence checks and enhanced information captured. • Education and Young People – to ensure each school has a designated point of contact within their staff who has enhanced knowledge of Prevent and the referral pathway. This action has been addressed within Childrens Services. ___________________________________________________________________
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PUBLIC Implications of the Report 1. Financial - None 2. HR & Organisational Development - None 3. Community/Council Planning – • Our Renfrewshire is safe – The Prevent Programme is essential to ensure that are communities are protected from the risk of terrorism so that people can go about their lives freely and with confidence. 4. Legal - None 5. Property/Assets - None 6. Information Technology - None 7. Equality & Human Rights (a) The Recommendations contained within this report have been assessed in relation to their impact on equalities and human rights. No negative impacts on equality groups or potential for infringement of individuals’ human rights have been identified arising from the recommendations contained in the report. If required following implementation, the actual impact of the recommendations and the mitigating actions will be reviewed and monitored, and the results of the assessment will be published on the Council’s website. 8. Health & Safety - None 9. Procurement - N/A 10. Risk - None 11. Privacy Impact - N/A 12. Climate Risk - N/A 13. Children’s Rights - N/A 14. Cosla Policy Position - N/A ___________________________________________________________________ List of Background Papers None ___________________________________________________________________ Author: Gwyneth Heaney, Senior Manager, Climate and Public Protection Email: gwyneth.heaney@renfrewshire.gov.uk