The Charity Commission’s experience is that proven instances of terrorist involvement or association in the charitable sector are low in comparison to the size of the sector. However, any such abuse is completely unacceptable and corrodes public confidence in charities. Charities therefore need to ensure they are not at risk. The commission’s counter-terrorism strategy explains our role and approach for dealing with concerns about the abuse of charities for terrorist purposes and our strategy for tackling the risk of terrorist abuse in the charitable sector. The commission has updated the strategy to take into account the findings of the government’s review of Prevent. However, the strategy still has a four strand approach to protecting charities from the risk of terrorist abuse:
awareness: raising awareness in the sector to build on charities’ existing safeguards
oversight and supervision: proactive monitoring of the sector, analysing trends and profiling risks and vulnerabilities
co-operation: strengthening partnerships with government regulators and enforcement agencies nationally and internationally
intervention: dealing effectively and robustly when abuse, or the risk of abuse, is apparent