The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, places a duty on higher education institutions, amongst others, to have due regard to the need to prevent people being drawn into terrorism (the “Prevent Duty”). Universities also have a general legal duty to secure freedom of speech on campus, within the law.
The University’s executive lead for ensuring that appropriate measures are in place to fulfil our Prevent Duty is Richard Calvert, Chief Operating Officer. He chairs the cross-University Prevent Steering Group, which includes representation from the Students’ Union.
Along with other public bodies, the University has a statutory duty to:
- make sure all appropriate frontline staff who have direct contact with students are aware of how to recognise vulnerability, how to escalate concerns and the local support available
- ensure that University buildings and facilities are not used for the purposes of promoting extremism. This could mean, for example, IT facilities being used to download or upload extremist literature, venues being used for a lecture by someone with a hate message, or groups raising funds for a banned organisation
- work as necessary with partners to safeguard our communities from terrorism. This includes schools, NHS bodies and others who have an individual responsibility to implement the Prevent duty.
Prevent does not require staff to do anything in addition to their normal duties and the University has not introduced a wide range of new processes to respond to our Prevent duty. Many arrangements are long-established and pre-existed Prevent, such as the approval of external speakers process, our student welfare services, Multifaith Chaplaincy and the staff Problem Resolution Framework, among others.
What is important is that if there are concerns that a vulnerable individual is being exploited, staff and students know how to raise the concern so that any necessary action may be taken. Sheffield Hallam considers Prevent to be a student welfare issue and all members of the University community should make themselves aware of the appropriate routes and welfare services so that they can raise issues where they are concerned about students who are being exploited or putting themselves or others at risk of harm.
More information for staff, including details on our short Prevent training course, is available on the staff intranet at: https://staff.shu.ac.uk/prevent.asp