Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

This article is part of the Counter-Terrorism Portal project of Spinwatch.

The Department for Communities and Local Government (branded as Communities and Local Government and referred to as the DCLG) is the United Kingdom government department for communities and local government since May 2006. The department originated in 2001 as the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Eric Pickles is the current Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, taking over from John Denham MP after the May 2010 election.

• • • Parliamentary Under Secretary of State: Bob Neill, MP, took over in May 2010 from Parmjit Dhanda, MP
    • Parliamentary Under Secretary: Baroness Hanham, took over in May 2010 from The Rt Hon. The Baroness Andrews, OBE

The Permanent Secretary is Peter Housden.

Initiatives and involvement

The Department for Communities and Local Government is one of the main players in the devising and implementation of the Prevent strand of the British Counter-Terrorism strategy, Contest 2.

Notable examples include:

• The Preventing Violent Extremism Pathfinder Fund (PVEPF)
• The Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU) - a strategic communications unit within the UK's Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism (OSCT), based in the Home Office and funded by and answerable to the Foreign Office and the Department for Communities and Local Government.
• National Muslim Women's Advisory Group

Preventing Violent Extremism (Funding by DCLG)

The DCLG has been responsible for the main strand of funding that has been provided to the task of Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE), or Prevent, as it is commonly referred to. In 2007-08, the DCLG funded £6 million for the Preventing Violent Extremism Pathfinder Fund (PVEPF) to support seventy priority local authorities in England to advance a programme that would “tackle violent extremism.”.

In June 2007, the DCLG also distributed £650,000 through the Community Leadership Fund (CLF) that would build the capacity of Muslims to fight extremism and complement the work being undertaken by local authorities under the PVEPF.

On 31 October 2007, Hazel Blears (the then Secretary of State for the DCLG) announced that the DCLG would provide a total of £45 million worth of funding for local partnerships from a period of April 2008 to March 2011. The £45 million announced by Hazel Blears went to: 76 local authorities in 2008-09, 82 local authorities in 2009-10 and will go to 94 local authorities in 2010-11.

In August 2009, a £7.5 million cash injection was authorised by the DCLG to local authorities in order to enhance the struggle against “al-Qaeda influenced extremism” and to “improve effectiveness of the Prevent programme.”

A further £5.1 million is being distributed over the period of 2009-2011 through the CLF programme.

The Challenge and Innovation Fund totalled to £3.2 million and was allocated in May 2009 (for delivery of projects during 2009-10) by the DCLG to local authorities in England to assist them with preventing violent extremism.

Including smaller avenues of funding, the total money that the DCLG will have allocated to Preventing Violent Extremism from April 2007-11 is estimated to be £80 million, of which £61.7 million will have been through local authorities.

Executive Agencies

• Planning Inspectorate
• Fire Service College
• Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre