Legal guidance compels the Prevent duty in Scotland so public authorities must implement the policy. A closer look at key differences in their approach provides insights for action and directs us to the organisations resisting the Prevent duty in Scotland.
By Zara W. Tahir
National security, and by extension, counter terrorism, remains a reserved matter in Scotland, and therefore under Westminster control.
However, one arm of the counter-terorrism strategy, the Prevent duty, requires the cooperation of public institutions north of the border, many of which are devolved.
This tension between reserved and devolved powers has led to key differences in how the Prevent duty is implemented in Scotland compared to the rest of the UK, particularly England.
Scottish MPs voice concerns with Prevent
In 2015, the Counterterrorism and Security Act was debated for five days in the UK Parliament. MPs raised concerns about its application in Scotland; these criticisms of the Prevent strategy have since been echoed by academics working on Prevent in the UK.
For a start, Scottish Government officials warned that promoting so-called ‘British values’ “could be damaging or unhelpful if it endorses a ‘them and us’ mentality”.
Much of this is to do with the fact that increasing support for Scottish independence has politicised the idea of ‘Britishness’ in Scotland.
However this criticism has not halted the implementation of the policy.
As Prof. Charlotte Heath-Kelly notes, Scotland’s approach to Prevent has been ambiguous, which has led to the creation of an environment of “free action” for devolved parties, referring to the way in which Scottish political parties have been able to criticise Westminster’s heavy handedness while quietly implementing the Prevent at home.
From a legal viewpoint, Scotland operates on slightly different grounds. The 2023 Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation stated that “terrorist risk” involving non-terrorism offences manifests differently under Scottish law.
On top of these technical differences, widespread skepticism among MPs and ethical concerns in public bodies mean there has been some resistance against a complete incorporation of Prevent in Scottish institutions.
Increase in Scottish children referred to Prevent
In Scotland, the impact of Prevent is hardest on young people – a similarity it shares with the rest of the UK. The largest group of referrals consists of 15–20-year-olds, mainly from the education and policing sectors.
Still, Scotland has significantly lower rates than England and Wales of children and young adults being referred to Prevent initially.
However, when considering actual Prevent cases in Scotland, the difference shrinks. This is because a Prevent referral becomes a “Prevent case” in Scotland once an individual has been adopted onto a “deradicalisation” programme.
This means that cases deemed “suitable for Prevent” in Scotland can be compared to cases deemed “suitable for Channel” in England.
So, although there are lower numbers of Prevent referrals in Scotland, the data of Prevent cases is more comparable to Channel cases, with Scotland even exceeding the UK in uptake in 2018/19.
The increase in Prevent cases in Scotland over the past year is being used by some Scottish MPs to justify the need for more securitisation, with the increase being termed by Scottish Conservative and Unionist MP Sharon Dowey as “deeply alarming”.
Dowey called on public service staff “to ensure that the public are kept safe, and children are not exposed to extremism”.
This reflects much the same narrative as the pro-Prevent lobby in the UK: one that argues for more securitised education, instead of considering the harms on children and young adults, especially those who are Muslim, as well as on education more broadly.
Key differences in the implementation of Prevent in Scotland
There are several key differences in the delivery of Prevent in Scotland compared to the rest of the UK. Most notably, the Prevent guidance for Scotland has no obligation to specifically promote “British values”.
Other differences appear in the context of health where Prevent falls under a broader ‘Resilience’ agenda. This means that the responsibility of implementing a Prevent action plan is up to each health board, with the appointment of a Prevent officer taking place through Scotland’s NHS Resilience Unit.
Adult support and protection processes work in parallel, but are not fully integrated, with Prevent, so there is room for professional discretion in making referrals.
Secondly, in Scotland, Prevent sits within the Adult Support and Protection Act 2007, which frames Prevent as protecting “vulnerable” adults from “harm”. So, it is not a “new” form of “abuse” as it has been legally framed in England and Wales under the 2014 Care Act.
This means that notions of vulnerability and radicalisation are understood differently by health sector staff in Scotland as the law does not conceive of a “radicaliser” that “grooms” , as noted by Prof. Heath-Kelly.
Other studies on public sector perceptions of the Prevent strategy suggest that, in general, staff had difficulty linking adult protection with “radicalisation”.
Thirdly, due to ethical concerns, Scotland does not participate in controversial Vulnerability Support Hubs where, in the event of a patient being referred to Prevent, psychiatric diagnoses are shared with counter-terrorism officers.
Protecting freedom of speech in education
In higher education, the 2023 Amnesty report on Prevent states that the Prevent duty guidance in Scotland contains “no oversight equivalent… [in Scottish universities] to that of the Office for Students in England and Wales”.
Since the first debates on the strategy in the Scottish Parliament, Prevent in Scotland has been associated with an awareness of the need to protect free speech – after the MP Lord Hope of Craighead expressed concerns about the effects of Prevent in higher education.
This resulted in a proposed amendment to the duty in 2015 that would have made it a legal duty to pay “particular regard” to the protection of freedom of speech, whilst vigilance toward radicalisation was to be given “due regard”.
Although the amendment never made it into law, it was debated in parliament. This, together with Scotland’s rejection of incorporating the notion of ‘British Values’ into counter-extremism, facilitates “a broader safeguarding approach” in Scotland.
Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the EIS (Educational Institute of Scotland) – Scotland’s largest and only teaching union – explains that Prevent in Scotland has been implemented with a more “balanced” approach than in the UK.
And the 2023 Amnesty report stated that Prevent in Scotland has failed to prime educators to “actively look for students who demonstrated resistance”.
Who is resisting Prevent in Scotland
Despite these observations, in light of increased children being targeted and a rise in Prevent cases, there is a growing body of organisations resisting Prevent in Scotland.
In 2015, as soon as the Prevent duty came into effect, the SACC (Scotland Against Criminalising Community) issued an open letter to the Scottish Government, expressing its concerns that it “othered” Muslims and threatened democratic principles.
Since then, other Scottish organisations have criticised Prevent in Scotland:
- The EIS categorically rejects Prevent and in 2016 the EIS Council passed a motion calling for, “a campaign of resistance against attempts to make training in Prevent strategies mandatory for all teachers and lecturers”. In April of the same year, Edinburgh University students held an overnight sit-in, in protest of the University’s implementation of Prevent. Later in June, the EIS voted to boycott Edinburgh College Prevent training, resulting in a complete withdrawal by the college of any reference to Prevent in staff training.
- More recently, in 2024, a joint letter was published by Together, Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights to MSP Angela Constance, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, requesting a meeting “to discuss the serious impact of the Prevent Strategy and Duty on the human rights of people living in Scotland”. This advice was undersigned and supported by other Scottish organisations such as SEMA (Scottish Ethnic Minority Autistics) and the Human Rights Consortium Scotland.
Despite all these efforts, a response from Holyrood, or indeed any MSP, has been conspicuously non-forthcoming.
The Scottish Government must address these concerns, including the findings of its own research findings, which conclude that Prevent is “inherently discretionary” – that is, that what is understood as ‘extremism’ is highly subjective and open to wide interpretation.
By choosing to ignore the concerns of the Scottish people, the government undermines the very democratic values Prevent purports to champion and promote.
Related…
Edinburgh Reporter: Primary school children among those referred to counter-terrorism programme
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