06 June 2008
Local authorities have welcomed extra funding to help tackle violent Islamic extremism but say this must be matched with the flexibility to implement local solutions.
The Home Office is providing an extra £12.5m this financial year to identify and target individuals and institutions at risk of succumbing to radicalisation, and to produce guidance on the steps community agencies can take.
A Local Government Association spokesman told Public Finance that such mapping activities should work well but he added: 'Each issue needs to be dealt with locally and there needs to be flexibility to tackle it because each council knows their community well and what is going to work.'
Communities Secretary Hazel Blears, one of the ministers launching the guidance on June 3, said violent extremism must not be allowed to take root. 'Local leadership is vital and it is people who know their communities best who, with support from government, provide the key to tackling this issue,' she said.
Sir Norman Bettison, chief constable of West Yorkshire Police and the Association of Chief Police Officers' spokesman on extremism, said police needed the support of schools, youth workers and the wider community to achieve what is needed.
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