Issue - meetings

            The Board considered a report of the Strategic Director, Enterprise, Community and Resources, which provided an update on the transfer of Channel and Prevent responsibilities from the Police to Local Authority responsibility. In 2016, the Home Office initiated the Dovetail pilot to assess the feasibility of transferring the resources and responsibility for administering the process and case management aspects of Channel from the Police to local authorities, trialled initially in nine areas.

            It was noted that in addition to the nine Local Authority Dovetail sites already operational, the North West region would be going live in January 2019. All Supervisors and Channel Coordinator staff had been recruited and received a five-day training package in November. The new staff would be based in Liverpool City Council, Manchester City Council and Blackburn with Darwen Council, responsible for Merseyside & Cheshire, Greater Manchester and Lancashire & Cumbria respectively.

            With regard to training, the Prevent training team was to launch two new Prevent training products: a dedicated referral awareness eLearning package, and a package that explains in depth the Channel process.  Both had been designed to support with training users, government departments and sectors over the past two years and to complement the existing Prevent awareness eLearning. They enable users to flexibly navigate their way through the content, and gain greater insight, knowledge and skills to confidently carry out their functions to support people vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism. 

            RESOLVED: That the report be noted.