£1m counterextremism funding returned to Home Office despite rising terror threat

Exclusive: Commission for Countering Extremism returns funds to government as sources say ‘no one knows’ what body does

Suella Braverman warned that the risk from terrorism was rising last month, but the Commission for Countering Extremism has returned £1m of funding in two years (PA Wire)

Almost £1m of unspent funding for counterextremism work has been handed back to the government despite a warning that “the risk from terrorism is rising”.

The Commission for Countering Extremism (CCE) was formed by the Home Office following the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing but the government has never publicly responded to any of its recommendations or reports.

Since current commissioner Robin Simcox took the helm in 2021, it has published no new research or scrutiny of government policy, despite home secretary Suella Braverman warning last month that the threat to Britain is rising as attackers become “increasingly unpredictable” and harder to detect.

Shadow security minister Holly Lynch said tackling extremism “should be a top priority for this government”.

“It is crucial that the commission is open and transparent about the work it undertakes and must demonstrate that it is upholding its obligations to provide impartial, expert advice and scrutiny,” she added. “These findings pose serious questions for the home secretary.”

Analysis by The Independent shows that the CCE has returned £980,000 of its budget to the Home Office in two years.

An official report said £680,000 was underspent in 2022-23 – over a third of the CCE’s entire budget – and was partly caused by delays in staff recruitment and “setting up project work”.

The previous year saw a £300,000 underspend, which the CCE said was “accrued due to delays in staff recruitment”.

Almost £950,000 was spent on pay over the same two-year period but the CCE did not answer The Independent’s questions on how many staff it employed.

The most recent annual report published by the body indicates that it has commissioned research tightly aligned with the home secretary’s political views, including looking at “how blasphemy is viewed and presented by UK Islamists” and “how various fringe ideologies promote anti-government messaging online”.

A conference hosted in December, which was not open to the press, included speeches from communities secretary Michael Gove – whose own department underspent £1.9bn of housing budget last year – and former Downing Street policy director Munira Mirza.

But no public reports or recommendations to the government have emerged from the event or engagement meetings with different groups listed on the CCE’s website.

Robin Simcox was made the commissioner for countering extremism in 2021 (Home Office)

A counterextremism practitioner, who did not want to be identified, told The Independent that “no one really knows” what the body is doing.

“How are they countering extremism or helping those on the front line?” they added.

“There have been no publications, no policies put forward publicly, no mainstream media interviews.

“There is little transparency or scrutiny – we don't know what advice he [Mr Simcox] is giving to the government or what his position is on live extremism issues.”

Another source said the CCE’s “output is quite hard to detect”, and that concerns about Ms Braverman’s rhetoric on immigration – which saw her call small boat crossings an “invasion” a day after a terror attack targeting migrants – must be addressed.

“We’re not getting reports and I think things should be public,” the official added. “If you’re going to make policy it’s got to see the light of day and people have got to have the chance to criticise it.”

Mr Simcox, who worked for a US think tank with close links to Donald Trump’s administration, previously called for Boris Johnson to “push back on ‘Islamophobia’” and be “wary” of calls for an internal Conservative Party review.

He also rejected the term “violent extremism” in a 2016 article, arguing that it was “dreamed up as a way to avoid saying ‘Islamic’ or ‘Islamist’ extremism in the months after the July 2005 suicide bombings in London”.

Several sources have told The Independent that the CCE is now primarily working to implement the findings of a controversial review of the government’s Prevent counterterrorism programme.

Sir William Shawcross’s appointment as chair of the government’s review into Prevent drew the ire of Amnesty International and other human rights groups (PA Archive)

Sir William Shawcross, a former Charity Commission head with close ties to the government, said Prevent should be “recalibrated” to focus on Islamism in February, claiming its work on the far right was “too broad”.

The review had been boycotted by significant charities including Amnesty UK over previous comments where Mr Shawcross called “Europe and Islam one of the greatest, most terrifying problems of our future”.

Documents seen by The Independent say that in February, Ms Braverman personally asked Mr Simcox to “support the implementation of the Independent Review of Prevent”.

A report added: “The home secretary has asked Robin and the CCE to support the understanding and implementation of many review recommendations across government. This includes several recommendations around training, ideology and [an] advisory board.”

The CCE did not respond to The Independent’s questions on the cause of the underspending, its staffing arrangements, why no reports had been published since 2021 and why there had been no public scrutiny of the government.

The body would not say what definition of extremism it worked to, or explain why the nature of its work appears to have changed in the past two years.

In the CCE’s latest annual report, Mr Simcox wrote that he would “provide the independent advice and scrutiny required to ensure government’s response to extremism is as refined and robust as it can be”.

He said he would have “frank discussions with political leadership, key decision makers, and communities across England and Wales about the roots of extremism in all its forms”.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Commission for Countering Extremism is an independent committee which provides the government with impartial, expert advice and scrutiny on the tools, policies and approaches needed to tackle extremism.”