CONTEST strategy

63/11
8 August 2011
MPA briefing paper 63/2011

This briefing paper has been prepared to inform members and staff. It is not a committee report and no decisions are required.

Briefing prepared by Shirani Gunawardena, Policing Policy, Scrutiny and Oversight, MPA

Summary

The revised CONTEST strategy was published in July 2011. This is the third published version of the United Kingdom’s counter-terrorism strategy. The full strategy is available online at: www.homeoffice.gov.uk/counter-terrorism/uk-counter-terrorism-strat

This new strategy reflects the changing terrorist threat and incorporates new Government policies on counter-terrorism.

The aim of CONTEST is to reduce the risk to the UK and its interests overseas from terrorism, so that people can go about their lives freely and with confidence.

The current environment

• International counter-terrorism work has made significant progress over the past ten years. Al Qa’ida is weaker than at any time since 9/11. It has played no role in recent political change in North Africa and the Middle East. Its ideology has been widely discredited and it has failed in all its objectives.
• Continued international pressure can further reduce its capability and the UK must work with other countries to seize those opportunities in the coming months and years.
• But, Al Qa’ida continues to be a significant threat and other terrorist groups, some affiliated to Al Qa’ida, have become stronger. The threat form Northern Ireland related terrorism has also increased.
• The government will therefore continue to give the highest importance to its counter-terrorism work.

The strategy CONTEST is organised around four principal work streams:

• Pursue: to stop terrorist attacks
• Prevent: to stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism
• Protect: to strengthen our protection against terrorist attack
• Prepare: where an attack cannot be stopped, to mitigate its impact

Pursue

The purpose of Pursue is to stop terrorist attacks in this country and against our interest overseas. This means detecting and investigating threats at the earliest possible stage, disrupting terrorist activity before it can endanger the public and, wherever possible, prosecuting those responsible.

In 2011-2015 we want to:

• Continue to assess our counter-terrorism powers and ensure they are both effective and proportionate;
• Improve our ability to prosecute people for terrorist-related offences;
• Increase our capabilities to detect, investigate and disrupt terrorist threats;
• Ensure that judicial proceedings in this country can better handle sensitive and secret material to serve the interests of both justice and national security; and
• Work with other countries and multilateral organisations to enable us to better tackle the threats we face at their source.

Prevent

The strategy has been reviewed and re-focused and there will be significant changes of principle. The new Prevent Strategy was published in June 2011.

The strategy will:

• Remain an integral part of the Government’s counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST.
• Address all forms of terrorism, including terrorism from the extreme right wing. However, Prevent work must be targeted against those forms of terrorism which pose the greatest risk to our national security. Currently, the greatest threat to our national security comes from Al Qa’ida, its affiliates and like-minded groups.
• Tackle non violent (and often legal) held extremist ideologies where they create an environment conducive to terrorism and popularise ideas which are also espoused by terrorist groups. Prevent will also continue to intervene with people who are moving beyond extremism and extremist groups towards terrorist related activity. Policy towards extremism in general will be the responsibility of the Department of Communities and Local Government.
• Make a clearer distinction between counter terrorist work and the Government’s integration strategy. Prevent depends on the success of work on integration and must be carefully and closely coordinated with it but the two programmes cannot be merged. Failure to draw a distinction between them jeopardises their successful delivery.
• Carefully evaluate progress and performance and in particular how funds are being allocated and spent.
• Ensure that Prevent funding is not be provided to extremist organisations who do not support the values of democracy, human rights, the rule of law and mutual respect and tolerance of different faith groups: the review found some evidence that very small percentages of Prevent funding had found their way to organisations that were extremist (or more commonly employed people with extremist views).

The new strategy is made up of three key objectives which build on key elements of the last Prevent programmes. These are:

• To respond to the ideological challenge of terrorism and of those extremist views conducive to it. At one end of the spectrum that means taking action against people who have broken the law. It means excluding people who wish to come to this country to promote violence or extremist views. But it also means ensuring that people engaged in radicalisation do not take advantage of public spaces – libraries, education, prisons to name just three - and that their activities are restricted. It will sometimes means public challenge to people who for too long have been able to get away with propaganda activity here.
• To prevent vulnerable people from being drawn into terrorism by developing and expanding programmes to identify who they are and then to provide them with support. These programmes are working but we need to do more of them. And they need to be transparent, open and accountable.
• To do much more with the wide range of sectors and institutions where the ideology, the ideologues and vulnerable people come together and where there are either risks of radicalisation or opportunities to prevent it – or both. That means education, health, faith, charities, prisons and probation, and of course the particular and vital issue of the internet. The strategy spells out what the Government is planning in each area.

Protect

The purpose of Protect is to strengthen our protection against a terrorist attack in the UK or against our interests overseas and so reduce our vulnerability. Our priorities are informed by an annual National Risk Assessment, a version of which we publish, which assesses the threats we face and the vulnerabilities we have.

From 2011-2015 our Protect objectives will be to:

• Strengthen UK border security;
• Reduce the vulnerability of the transport network;
• Increase the resilience of the UK’s infrastructure;
• Improve protective security for crowded places

Prepare

The purpose of our Prepare work is to mitigate the impact of a terrorist attack where that attack cannot be stopped. This includes work to bring a terrorist attack to an end and to increase our resilience so we can recover from its aftermath. An effective and efficient response will save lives, reduce harm and aid recovery.

Over the next four years we will therefore:

• Continue to build generic capabilities to respond to and recover from a wide range of terrorist and other civil emergencies;
• Improve preparedness for the highest impact risks in the National Risk Assessment;
• Improve the ability of the emergency services to work together during a terrorist attack;
• Enhance communications and information sharing for terrorist attacks.1.46. Testing and exercising are vital to our resilience and preparedness. We have a National Counter Terrorism Exercise Programme. We will maintain this and Ministers will participate in it. We will also place great emphasis on learning and absorbing the lessons from these exercises and will expect participating agencies to do this quickly and comprehensively. We will monitor their progress.

Send an e-mail linking to this page

Feedback