Counter-terrorism - the Prevent duty

The Office for Students (OfS) monitors what higher education providers in England do to prevent people being drawn into terrorism.

What is the Prevent duty?

The Prevent duty aims to stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.

The government updated its statutory guidance for England and Wales in 2023.

The government has set out our monitoring role under the Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015.

What do providers have to do?

To comply with the Prevent duty, providers need to:

• assess the risks associated with Prevent and draw up a plan to mitigate these
• have effective welfare support systems, linking to the Department for Education CONTEST coordinators, local authorities or the police if necessary 
• have systems for assessing and mitigating risks around external speakers and events on campus
• arrange ongoing Prevent training for relevant staff
• have an IT usage policy, and where appropriate a research policy, which cover the Prevent duty
• engage with students and ensure that students' unions and societies are aware of policies concerning activities on campus or affiliated to the provider.

When doing these things, OfS-registered providers (and their constituent institutions) must have particular regard to their duty to take steps to secure free speech, and must always comply with their statutory free speech duties. 

Does Prevent apply to my organisation?

The Prevent duty applies to the governing bodies or proprietors of ‘relevant higher education bodies’ (RHEBs). 

Under the OfS, RHEBs are defined as:

• providers that are registered with the OfS
• providers that are not registered but have more than 250 higher education students - we define higher education students as those studying on a course that leads to a recognised higher education award in Schedule 6 of the Education Reform Act (1988)
• providers that are designated for student support (e.g. for the purposes of ‘teach out’)
• all the autonomous colleges, schools and halls of the Universities of Cambridge, Durham and Oxford.

Further education colleges

Ofsted, rather than the OfS, is responsible for monitoring the implementation of the Prevent duty by further education or sixth-form colleges.