Preventing Violent Extremism Pathfinder Fund

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

The Preventing Violent Extremism Pathfinder Fund was established by the British government's Department for Communities and Local Government in 2007 as "a key element of the Prevent element of the Government’s counter-terrorism strategy - CONTEST."

The Pathfinder Fund distributes funds via local government to Muslim organisations that will assist in:

"preventing violent extremism and...creating a situation where Muslim communities reject and actively condemn violent extremism and seek to undermine and isolate violent extremists".

It was agreed by the DCLG that £5 million would be made available under the Pathfinder Fund from April 2007 for that financial year, however, this figure drastically increased to £45 million under the leadership of Hazel Blears and will be allocated over the next three financial years.

By 2010-11, it has been suggested that PVE Pathfinder funding will increase to £18 million per year.

Strategic Objectives

The strategic objectives of the Pathfinder fund are:

"to develop a community in which Muslims in our communities: * identify themselves as a welcome part of a wider British society and are accepted as such by the wider community;

• reject violent extremist ideology and actively condemn violent extremism;
• isolate violent extremist activity, and support and co-operate with the police and security services; and,
• develop their own capacity to deal with problems where they arise and support diversionary activity for those at risk."

To deliver these objectives, it is suggested by the DCLG that there should be "concerted action" between "central Government, local government, the police and the security services, the third sector and, vitally, local communities...".

The Pathfinder Fund also suggests that the above objectives need to be focused on the following three levels -

• At the general population of our Muslim communities, helping them to build their resilience to violent extremist messages and to voice their condemnation of violent extremism;
• At those who are most at risk of being groomed into violent extremist ideologies, developing specific interventions to help individuals counter such messages; and,
• At those justifying and/or glorifying violent extremist ideologies and terrorism...[who create]...an ambiance and atmosphere of toleration of extremist ideologies and terrorism."

Increasing Resilience

According to the Pathfinder Fund Guidance Notes, early interventions and the resilience of key organisations against violent extremism can be enhanced through:

• "activities that improve intelligence gathering and sharing at a local level, to create systems in their own services/institutions (or with partners) for enabling concerns/intelligence to be reported and acted on and to promote effective working with local police/regional security services.
• Activities that seek to provide mechanisms to identify vulnerable communities, groups and individuals in local areas and strategies by which to address such at risk groups, and
• Activities to develop targeted programmes of counter- and de-radicalisation work in local areas, particularly in key institutions – such as universities, colleges and schools – and key locations."

Uncertain Objectives

According to a PVE Pathfinder Fund Report published by the DCLG, which mapped a total of 261 PVE projects activities in 2007/08 for nine English regions it stated that:

"Over two-fifths of all projects across England sought to challenge the violent extremist ideology and support mainstream voices (Objective 1) and develop understanding, analysis and evaluation (Objective 6, 48% and 44% respectively)"

Table 1: This graph shows the number of PVE Pathfinder Projects that were focused on either of the 7 objectives of Prevent

According to the wording of the official British counter-terrorism Strategy - CONTEST, the purpose of Objective 6 is

"...to: develop supporting intelligence, analysis and information...".

Therefore, out of the 261 projects under the Pathfinder Fund, 44 percent of projects (114 actual projects) were focused on the collation of information, intelligence and analysis, along with undermining the extremist voices within local Muslim communities.

South-West England-All the projects that were carried out under the PVE Pathfinder Fund in the South-West of England (a total of 3) were categorised by the DCLG Report as assissting in the the delivery of "Objective 6" - 'to develop supporting intelligence, analysis and information'.

How Success is Measured in the Pathfinder Fund

According to the DCLG:

"The key measure of success will be demonstrable changes in attitudes among Muslims, and wider communities they are part of, locally and nationally".

This will be done by:

"Understanding and mapping current local attitudes will thus be important and local partners will be invited to take part in developing, piloting and rolling out surveys that provide baselines for future progress".

Funding Eligibility

Any local council borough, which housed either a "sizeable Muslim community", or had more than 5 percent Muslims, was considered for funding under the Preventing Violent Extremism Pathfinder programme.

The actual wording in the Guidance Notes stated:

"Our aim is to develop resilient British Muslim communities as part of our response to this threat. The fund will therefore be focused on local authorities with sizeable Muslim communities. As a starting point, authorities with populations of 5% or more should be considered for funding.

Funding: Regional Breakdown

Table 2: Breakdown of funding given to 9 English region under the PVE Pathfinder Fund for year 2007-08

Funding under the PVE Pathfinder Fund for the year 2007-08 totaled £5,970,377.00 and was distributed to the following nine English regions. A breakdown of how much funding each region obtained is given in the table 2.

London | North West | South East | East Midlands | West Midlands | East of England | Yorkshire and Humber | North East | South West