Referrals to the Prevent counter-terrorism programme reached a record 10,293 in the year ending September 2025, according to a National Audit Office (NAO) report published on Friday 13 November. The spending watchdog said demand for the programme has risen every year since 2020, and the changing mix of cases is putting the system under pressure.

Only 30% of referrals in the year to September 2025 were linked to a clear, dominant extremist ideology, down from 73% in 2017. New referral categories introduced in April 2024 include people who have no clear ideology but show a fascination with extreme violence or mass-casualty attacks. These individuals, sometimes described as violence-fixated, made up 8% of referrals in the year to September 2025. The NAO said the Home Office and Counter Terrorism Policing do not share a unified view of when such people should meet the threshold for support through Channel, the programme's multi-agency support scheme.

Many referrals do not lead to Prevent support. The NAO said 78% of referrals in the year ending September 2025 were assessed by Counter Terrorism Policing as ineligible for support through local Channel panels, usually because the individual was assessed as not being at risk of radicalisation. Most of those referrals were signposted to other safeguarding services. The watchdog also found the Home Office has significant gaps in its understanding of barriers to referral, and the programme may still be missing some people at risk of radicalisation. It said increased awareness of Prevent following the 2024 Southport attack may have contributed to the rise in referrals.

Underspending and falling local funding

The Home Office underspent its £23.4 million Prevent budget by 28% in 2025-26, the report found. That continues a six-year pattern in which the department underspent by an average of £5.6 million, or 17%, a year in real terms. At the same time, funding for Prevent to priority local authorities has fallen from £9.5 million to 45 authorities in 2020-21 to £4.4 million to 27 authorities in 2026-27. The NAO said the Home Office does not have a complete understanding of the programme's full costs because much of the spending happens locally. Prevent makes up a small proportion of the government's annual £3 billion counter-terrorism budget.

Evidence of positive impact

The NAO found evidence that Prevent is having a positive impact on many of the people it supports, although it said it is inherently difficult to prove that the programme reduces the incidence of terrorism. In 2024-25, 58% of individuals left Channel with no further counter-terrorism concerns, and repeat referrals fell from 34% to 21% over the past decade. Prevent is delivered locally across Great Britain, with 159 multi-agency Channel panels in England and Wales that assess people at risk of radicalisation and arrange support. The NAO said the panels take a strong multi-agency approach, drawing on expertise from policing, health, education and social care, but are often forced to make decisions with incomplete data because of delays in receiving information from delivery partners.

The watchdog also found that the Home Office has not done enough to evaluate the effectiveness of Channel interventions or to communicate where Prevent is working, contributing to continued scepticism about the programme. It recommends that the Home Office agree a unified view of Channel thresholds with Counter Terrorism Policing, strengthen its financial management to avoid significant underspends, and improve oversight using stronger performance data and risk management. Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said: "Prevent is operating in an increasingly complex environment, with record referrals and changing patterns of risk. To build on the positive cross-agency work at the heart of the programme, the Home Office needs to strengthen its financial management, oversight and evaluation of the programme so it can build on what is working and ensure the programme is ready for the challenges ahead."

The report, Reducing Radicalisation: The Prevent Programme, was published on 13 November. Prevent, which aims to stop people being drawn into terrorism, was launched in 2007 and is delivered through local authorities, police and other public services.