Prevent Guidance

An introduction to Prevent Legislation

At Newcastle University there are many different strands to our wellbeing provision, one of which is to safeguard our students from being drawn into terrorism or being subject to radicalisation.

To achieve this, we work closely with external agencies and in line with the Prevent Legislation to create an open and inclusive learning environment, where the wellbeing of our students and colleagues is of upmost concern.

The associated video provides you with an introduction to the Prevent Legislation.

Prevent is one of four work strands which make up the government's counter-terrorism strategy:

Pursue

focuses on detecting, investigating and disrupting terrorist threats to the UK and our interests overseas.

Protect

aims to reduce the vulnerability of the UK and UK interests overseas to terrorist attack. This includes aviation security for both cargo and passengers.

Prepare

aims to minimise the impact of any attack, manage any incidence of an ongoing attack and recover quickly and effectively

Prevent

aims to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism

Prevent will :

Respond to the ideological challenge of terrorism and the threat faced by the UK from those who promote it
Prevent people from being drawn into terrorism and ensure they are given appropriate advice and support
Work with a wide range of sectors (including education, criminal justice, faith, charities, the internet and health) where there are risks of radicalisation which need to be addressed

About Prevent Guidance

Higher education institutions have a duty of care to students, colleagues and visitors. Prevent has introduced a new statutory duty for higher education institutions:

to have due regard to the need to prevent individuals from being drawn into terrorism
to draw upon skills and networks already in place for other areas of safeguarding

Awareness of Prevent involves an understanding of the strategy itself as well as the wider legal context within which universities must operate including:

the Education Act (No.2) 1986
the Education Reform Act 1988
the Equality Act 2010

Universities must balance a wide-ranging set of responsibilities. Universities are open institutions with a legal obligation to promote and facilitate academic freedom and freedom of speech. However, these are qualified rights. However, section 31 of the Counter Terrorism and Security Act states:

that in meeting the statutory duty, higher education institutions must have particular regard to the duty to ensure freedom of speech and the importance of academic freedom

Registrar's Introduction

The Prevent legislation placed a new legal requirement on all higher education institutions and many other public bodies and authorities to have “due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”.

In this short video our Registrar, Dr John Hogan, introduces Prevent and answers these key questions:

what it is?
how it affects us a university?
how we can balance it with our commitment to academic freedom and the anticipated impact?

Newcastle University Prevent Guidance

The Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015 places a duty on all universities, to have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism. In the case of Newcastle University ‘People’ are our colleagues and students or those who represent the University.

The Prevent Duty Guidance for Higher Education Institutions in England and Wales was published by the government in September 2015 and updated in 2019. The OFS are the monitoring body and have provided a Monitoring Framework (PDF: 491KB) which all registered HEI providers in England are required to satisfy.

The University views Prevent as a strand of its safeguarding responsibilities and the main Prevent contact for the University is the Director of Student Health and Wellbeing. To support the Director of Student Health and Wellbeing the University has in place an Internal Prevent Group, which meets to progress and monitor compliance with the duty. Some key areas of focus:

ensuring senior management and governance oversight of implementation of the duty
effective engagement with students on the implementation of the duty
effective engagement with other partners
operation of appropriate policies and procedures, including a new policy on external speakers
appropriate staff training and briefing
sharing information where legal and appropriate
appropriate welfare, pastoral support
the use of the IT facilities

The Board of Governors and University Executive Board have considered the following when implementing the prevent duty:

that the prevent duty should not be detrimental in any way to either the legislative requirements or spirit of academic freedom and freedom of speech which are fundamental parts of university life
that equality and diversity values should not be threatened
that the requirements of the Prevent duty are implemented in a proportionate and risk-based manner, relevant to the local context in which the University is based
a commitment to the safety and wellbeing of our colleagues and students and all who interact with the University, including not being victims of, or complicit with any activities linked to radicalisation
support for campus cohesion and harmonious relations across all parts of the University community

If you wish to know more or have any further queries please contact either:

Name	Job title	Department	Telephone	Email
Sally Ingram	Director of Student Health and Wellbeing	Student Health Wellbeing Services	0191 208 5870	sally.ingram@ncl.ac.uk
Kelly Oliver	Risk Management Adviser	Executive Office	0191 208 7689	kelly.oliver2@ncl.ac.uk
Premila Nair	Chief Operating Officer	Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia	+6 07 555 3800	premila.nair@newcastle.edu.my
Jo Geary	Chief Operating Officer	Newcastle University Singapore	0191 208 2555	jo.geary@newcastle.ac.uk

External speakers

Newcastle University enjoys an open environment where academic freedom and freedom of speech are fundamental:

where debate, challenge and opposing views are encouraged
where ideas that may be controversial and offensive to some are likely to be expressed

Academic freedom is fundamental to our strategic goals, teaching and research.

But all freedoms have limits imposed by law, in order to protect the rights and freedoms of others. The rules are neither simple nor always easy to apply. However, the University has produced new, and reviewed existing, policies and arrangements linked to the headline OFS requirements. This includes:

a Code of Practice for Freedom of Speech (PDF: 83KB)
a Policy and Code of Conduct for external speakers

What should I do if I have any concern?

The University views Prevent concerns as a wellbeing need. As with any wellbeing concern, if you are worried about a colleague or a student please contact us using the details below. The team will hear your concerns, provide support and advice.

With guidance from the Director of Student Health and Wellbeing and appropriate People Services colleagues, will take any safeguarding action required.

Telephone: 0191 208 3333
Email us

For urgent concerns that cannot wait until the next working day, please call Univeristy Security: 0191 208 6817.

Training

At Newcastle University we encourage everyone to understand the role they can play in keeping us safe. To ensure this we offer training opportunities:

for our colleagues via our Learning Management System (LMS) (Please note, only registered Newcastle University colleagues will be able to access and complete the Prevent training)
for all members of our University community via the Home Office

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