Understanding the implementation of Stop Responsibility in County Durham Colleges

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May 22, 2024

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Implementation of Stop Responsibility in County Durham Colleges

Supervised by: Dr Jessie Blackbourn, Affiliate Professor in Public Regulation and Human Rights,
Durham Regulation College

Background of Stop Responsibility

The Stop Responsibility is a statutory steering that units out what faculties and native authorities should do to adjust to the regulation regarding counter-terrorism preventive measures. That is a part of the broader marketing campaign beneath the UK authorities’s CONTEST technique, with the purpose of ‘Stop’ being not solely the prevention of radicalisation but additionally subsequent rehabilitation. Whereas not technically a regulation, this steering nonetheless needs to be largely adopted except there’s a good purpose to not as in accordance with precedents set in R v Islington LBC [1998] 1 CCLR 119.

Points and rationale of the undertaking

As talked about the Stop Responsibility information is finally solely a quick steering materials that can fail to account for each scenario concerning attainable radicalisation. Whereas it makes an attempt to have interaction and “cope with all types of terrorism”, it serves solely as a skeleton blanket steering scheme. Therefore this probably leaves a lot room for private discretion by way of software and implementation. It’s thus vital to grasp the diploma of adherence these faculties have undertaken; and the way differing establishments interpret the language utilised in these steering supplies in comparison with the unique intention of parliament.

Moreover, it’s good to notice that the unique statutory obligation may be very transient and brief. It solely directs how “a selected authority should, within the train of its capabilities, have due regard to the necessity to forestall folks from being drawn into terrorism”, adopted by who is classed beneath ‘particular authority’. It depends closely on the Stop Responsibility statutory steering to additional elaborate on, for instance, actions and steps to be taken. This might probably enable for additional detraction from its authentic declare as whereas guidances must be adopted, they don’t seem to be as limiting as legal guidelines. The aforementioned case of Islington dominated this obligation comes “with liberty to deviate from it the place the native authority judges on admissible grounds that there’s good purpose to take action”.

Analysis Methodology

This analysis will then purpose to collate college insurance policies on the Stop Responsibility, basic safeguarding and radicalisation necessities and their definitions on key phrases like ‘extremism’, ‘radicalisation’ and ‘terrorism’.

This together with different related materials will then be collated right into a central database whereby the knowledge is sorted and offered collectively. Most of this knowledge will possible be collected from college web sites and different platforms these faculties use to disseminate and share info and insurance policies.

Attainable limitations

Given the delicate nature of this matter in regard to counter-terrorism procedures, it may be attainable that some faculties wouldn’t publish such information overtly for public entry. Moreover, the Stop Responsibility coverage is inherently controversial in nature with claims of discrimination and eroding public belief, crucially the student-teacher relationship. It was documented that greater than 9 out of ten Stop referrals in 2017/18 didn’t require any additional de-radicalisation actions, additional emphasising its attainable discriminatory practices. Therefore, this may additional scale back the potential of faculties publicly sharing their doctrines and procedures.

In such instances, ought to the pattern measurement scale back drastically because of the lack of publicly accessible info, a Freedom of Data Request may be thought of. Nonetheless, the time-frame of the undertaking has to even be considered and this will likely be additional evaluated ought to the necessity come up.

Current literature overview

Whereas there are journal articles and analysis performed on this very matter with comparable goals like “The Stop Responsibility in UK increased training: Insights from freedom of data requests” revealed within the British Journal of Politics and Worldwide Relations by Andrew Whiting et al., or “The Impression of Stop Responsibility on Colleges: A Assessment of Proof” by Jerome Lee et al. These articles are largely involved with the final, macro impacts and implications of the Stop Responsibility coverage on faculties.

This undertaking differs in two main methods. Firstly, its deal with Durham County is attention-grabbing as whereas the steering revealed is basic and largely centered on what the federal government deems to be the central risk, “Within the UK, the first home terrorist risk comes from Islamist terrorism”. For Durham, it’s arguably far-right extremism that poses a bigger drawback. Therefore with the steering extra centered on recognizing Islamist-inspired terrorism, it leaves a niche on this extra home type of radicalisation. Secondly, given the smaller scope of this analysis, it’s also in a position to dive into every college’s insurance policies and draw extra nuanced conclusions concerning the extent of discretion utilised of their implementation.