CONTEST has four strands of work: Prevent, Pursue, Protect and Prepare.
CONTEST is intended to be a comprehensive strategy: work on Pursue and
Prevent reduces the risk from terrorism; work on Protect and Prepare
reduces the UK’s vulnerability to attack.
Prevent – preventing people from becoming terrorists or
supporting violent extremism.
To reduce the risk from terrorism we need not only to stop attacks but
also to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting violent extremism.
The Government introduced its revised Prevent strategy in October 2007. The
strategy is based on a better understanding of the causes of radicalisation
(the process by which people become terrorists or lend support to violent
extremism), to each of which it aims to provide a coherent response.
Between 2008/09 and 2010/11 this workstream has five main objectives:
• To challenge the ideology behind violent extremism and support
the places where they operate.
• Disrupt those who promote violent extremism and support the
places where they operate.
• Support individuals who are vulnerable to recruitment, or have
already been recruited by violent extremists.
• Increase the resilience of communities to violent
extremism.
• To address the grievances which ideologues are exploiting.
The two supporting objectives are to: develop supporting intelligence,
analysis, and information; and to improve our strategic communication.
The network of nine regional Government Offices manages the strategic
relationship between central government and localities across the full
spread of government work, including CONTEST. On Prevent issues, Government
Office West Midlands works to ensure good communications between central
government and local authorities, build capacity, facilitate cross-boundary
working and identify and disseminate good practice.
