Ofsted has responsibility for monitoring the ‘Prevent’ duty in publicly funded further education and skills providers. The Chief Inspector commissioned Her Majesty’s Inspectors (HMI) to undertake this survey to establish how well providers are implementing the duty. The survey focused on key matters outlined in the ‘Prevent’ duty guidance. Are providers ensuring that external speakers and events are appropriately risk assessed to safeguard learners? Are the partnerships between different agencies effective in identifying and reducing the spread of extremist influences? Are providers assessing the risks that their learners may face, and taking effective action to reduce these risks? Are learners being protected from inappropriate use of the internet and social media? To what extent are staff training and pastoral welfare support contributing to learners’ safety? The evidence in this report is based on survey visits to 37 further education and skills providers, combined with findings from 46 full inspections or monitoring visits between November 2015 and May 2016. HMI found considerable variation in how effectively providers have implemented the ‘Prevent’ duty. General further education and sixth form colleges, where the majority of learners were enrolled, had made more progress than the other types of providers visited. The majority of providers had implemented the ‘Prevent’ duty guidance well. However, some providers viewed the duty as a list of conditions just to comply with and have adopted a ‘tick-box’ approach. This goes against the spirit of the government’s guidance, which seeks to promote meaningful ways to reduce the specific risks of radicalisation and extremism for learners and the local community. In 13 of the providers visited, inspectors judged that the implementation of at least one aspect of the duty was slow when compared to other providers, or was well behind schedule. In two of the eight independent learning providers visited, not a single aspect of the ‘Prevent’ duty had been implemented. In these providers, learners’ safety was potentially at risk as leaders and managers lacked the understanding to develop risk assessments that identified accurately the possible threats to learners and the local community. Six of the providers visited had no arrangements in place to check the suitability of external speakers. Even in some of the 31 providers that had appropriate policies and procedures to check external speakers and events, these did not always work well in practice. Nine providers allowed external speakers onto the premises without following their own monitoring procedures. Too often, learners were potentially at risk because leaders had not ensured that suitable checks had been completed.
learner close the webpage. The learner showed no remorse about what she had done. The learner received no support or counselling from the college and was not reprimanded in any way. The college reported the incident as a ‘Prevent’ incident through the Channel process without an internal investigation. The college felt that the issue was the responsibility of the Channel team and did not take any responsibility as to how the learner managed to access the site. The best providers visited had a range of strategies in place to ensure that learners were safe while using IT. These strategies included: closely monitoring IT usage in real time, in order to identify and address inappropriate use of IT, at which computer and by whom tracking IT use on guest log-ins risk-rating learners and sampling IT access daily reports to senior leaders of attempts to access inappropriate websites developing stringent firewalls with external providers sharing data regarding ‘popular’ contentious and blocked websites that learners had attempted to access with police ‘Prevent’ teams as part of local intelligence gathering. More than a third of providers did not liaise with external agencies such as Jisc to develop IT policies and firewalls. Jisc provides guidance and support to further education and skills providers in writing IT policies and in developing firewalls for computer systems. It is named specifically in the ‘Prevent’ duty guidance. The best providers have liaised closely with external agencies such as Jisc and have stringent firewalls in place. In these providers, learners reported that internet safety was strong but sometimes felt frustrated that firewalls were too restrictive. However, learners understood that it was to keep them safe while using IT. Learners could access blocked websites if they provided the IT team with reasons for accessing the sites: for example, research for history, politics, theology or public services. Conclusion The focused visits and routine inspections were conducted at a very early point following the ‘Prevent’ duty becoming mandatory. It is still early days and providers still see the implementation of the ‘Prevent’ duty as a work in progress. Providers now must work more quickly to ensure that learners are protected against the threats of radicalisation and extremism. We have seen through the good practice identified in this survey that proactive providers were fully prepared for the implementation of the ‘Prevent’ duty. The whole of the