The Office for Students has recently published its Prevent monitoring data for 2024/2025. The broad themes are:
The number of referrals to Channel is small but represents a marked 46% increase.
In 2024-25 there were 95 ‘formal external Prevent referrals’. In 2023-24 and 2022-23 there were 65; 55 referrals in 21/22, 47 in 2020-21, 37 in 2019-20, 24 in 2018-19, and 15 in 2017-18.
Numbers remain low given the total number of institutions (335 in 2023-24) and the students covered by the returns.
The number of events and speakers approved by institutions remains high. Rates of refusal for any reason, and for Prevent related reasons remain low but have increased.
In 2024-25 the number of events or speaker requests rejected for Prevent related reasons was 15, while in 2023-24, as in 2022-23 the number of events or speaker requests rejected for Prevent related reasons was less than or equal to 2, as was the case in 21/22, and in 2020-21 the number was zero.
Overall, the number of events or speaker requests rejected in 2024-25 has increased to 380, returning to 22/23 levels, following a dip in 2023-24 to 220. 42,475 events were approved overall. There were 340 rejections in 22/23, and 260 rejections in 21/22. The percentage rejected has risen to approaching 1% of all events, but for Prevent related reasons remains statistically negligible.
For the third year, institutions have been providing data on the underpinning ideology behind the statistics.
For cases escalated to the Prevent lead, or for informal external advice, or for a formal Prevent referral, ‘Islamist radicalisation’ figures are broadly on a par with ‘Extreme right-wing radicalisation’, with ‘Mixed, unclear or unstable ideology’ now outstripping the other categories.
Numbers of staff identified as key in relation to the Prevent duty (77,875), and those receiving induction training (29,075) and refresher training (26,895) remain high, though the first figure has fallen since 2023/24.
If institutions have combined the required staff training in relation to E6, with their training on Prevent, we might see these numbers rise in the next data return.
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