The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 (CTSA) creates a statutory duty for specified public authorities to 'have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism'. Prevent is one of four strands of the government’s counter-terrorism strategy.
Universities became subject to the Prevent duty on 18 September 2015. The Office for Students (OfS) monitors what higher education providers do to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism and assesses how they meet the requirements under the duty.
The University is meeting its obligations under Prevent cognisant of (a) the explicit responsibility in the CTSA to 'have particular regard to the duty to ensure freedom of speech' and the importance of academic freedom and (b) the fundamental importance of pre-existing legislation, such as the Human Rights Act 1998, the Education Act 1986, the Education Reform Act 1988 and the Equality Act 2010.