Prevent funding mostly goes to undisclosed organisations
01 April 2017 - SACC
The Scottish Government has provided information on some of the non-governmental organisations that it has funded in connection with the Prevent strategy. It has refused to provide a full list, claiming that the information is exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Scotland Act on national security and law enforcement grounds and that disclosure would endanger the health and safety of individuals working in the organisations it funds.
The total funding given by the Scottish Government to NGOs in support of Prevent delivery in Scotland from 1 April 2011 to 16 July 2016 was £586,676.94, spread over 37 separate grants. 87% of this total was given to undisclosed organisations. The largest single known grant was £50,000 given to Robert Gordon University in 2015/16.
The Scottish Government initially refused to provide any information, but released the following information on 14 September 2016 after carrying out an internal review of its decision.
| Financial Year | Name | Funding Received |
|---|---|---|
| 2011/12 | Uni of Edinburgh | £1,500 |
| ELREC | £900 | |
| 2012/13 | Digital Media Cast | £3,500 |
| 2013/14 | St Andrews University (Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence) | £975 |
| 2014/15 | Young Scot | £4,590 |
| 2015/16 | Ten Boss | £7,198 |
| Robert Gordon University | £50,000 | |
| 2016/17 | Robert Gordon University | £7,500 |
On 31 March 2017, following a decision by the Scottish Information Commissioner, the Scottish Government additionally released some aggregated data on its funding awarded to non-governmental organisations to support Prevent delivery in Scotland. The following table provides the number of Prevent grants awarded in Scotland across financial bands over the period 1 April 2011 to 16 July 2016.
| Amount of Prevent Funding | Number of grants awarded |
|---|---|
| 0-£4,999 | 15 |
| £5,000-£9,999 | 4 |
| £10,000-£14,999 | 1 |
| £15,000-£24,999 | 11 |
| Over £25,000 | 6 |
| Total number of grants | 37 |
| Total grant awards | £586,676.94 |
In addition to the information provided by the Scottish Government, it is known from freely available accounts filed at Companies House that Amina Muslim Women's Resource Centre received £15,000 in 2014/15 and £21,000 in 2015/16 for purposes that are clearly intended to support Prevent delivery in Scotland (details here). For part of this time Amina was a signatory to to the 'Together Against Prevent' statement, which includes a pledge to take no Prevent funds.
It seems likely that the undisclosed organisations working on Prevent delivery are mainly organisations that are rooted in or work heavily with minority ethnic communities, especially the Muslim community. Disclosure (see the first table) of Prevent funding of ELREC (Edinburgh and Lothian Regional Equality Council) might appear anomalous, but would have been hard for the Scottish Government to avoid as it had disclosed similar funding for the period 2008/10 in response to a previous FOI request.
Photo: Robert Gordon University by Jackofhearts101. Some Rights reserved
