Part 1: Counter-terrorism Chapter 4: Miscellaneous Section 20: Persons vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism
Subsections (2) to (7) amend provisions in Part 5 of the 2015 Act which provides the statutory underpinning of the Government’s Prevent programme. The purpose of the Prevent programme is to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. It deals with all kinds of international terrorist threats to the UK. The most significant of these threats is currently from Daesh and other terrorist organisations in Syria and Iraq. But terrorists associated with the extreme right also pose a continued threat to the United Kingdom’s safety and security.
	Prevent activity in local areas relies on the co-operation of many organisations to be effective. Chapter 1 of Part 5 of the 2015 Act underpins this co-operation with a duty on specified authorities (listed in Schedule 6 to the 2015 Act), including local authorities, the police, prisons and probation providers, and education and health providers, to have due regard, when performing their functions, to the need to prevent people being drawn into terrorism. In 2017/18, a total of 7,318 individuals were subject to a referral due to concerns that they were vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism (Individuals referred to and supported through the Prevent programme, April 2017 to March 2018, Home Office Statistical Bulletin 31/18.
	The "Channel" programme in England and Wales is a multi-agency programme which provides tailored support to people who have been identified as at risk of being drawn into terrorism. Through the programme, agencies work together to assess the nature and the extent of this risk and, where necessary, provide an appropriate support package tailored to individual needs. In 2017/18, 394 people received Channel support following a Channel panel (Individuals referred to and supported through the Prevent programme, April 2017 to March 2018, Home Office Statistical Bulletin 31/18). In Scotland, the programme is known as "Prevent Professional Concerns".
	Chapter 2 of Part 5 of the 2015 Act underpins the Channel arrangements. In particular, section 36 requires local authorities to establish a panel (known as a "Channel panel") to discuss and, where appropriate, determine the provision of support for people who have been identified by the police as at risk of being drawn into terrorism. The panel must determine what support may be provided and in what circumstances. Subsections (3) and (4) amend section 36 to enable a local authority, as well as the police, to refer an individual who they believe to be vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism to a Channel panel. Section 38 requires the partners of a panel (that is, those bodies listed in Schedule 7 to the 2015 Act) to cooperate with the panel to allow the panel to make informed decisions and carry out its functions. There is an associated duty to cooperate with the police, in particular, in relation to their function of determining whether an individual should be referred to a panel for the carrying out of an assessment. Subsections (6) and (7) amend section 38 so that the duty on the partners of a panel to cooperate with the police in discharging their functions under section 36 extends to a duty to co-operate with a local authority carrying out such functions. The partners of a panel must have regard to statutory guidance issued by the Secretary of State.
	Subsections (8) to (10) place a duty on the Secretary of State to establish an independent review of "the Government strategy for supporting people vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism". The review must be established within six months of Royal Assent and the report of the review and any recommendations, together with the Government response, must be published within 18 months of Royal Assent.