Annual Prevent training is one of the most widely repeated claims in this market and it is not in the guidance. It comes from somewhere else, and it is worth knowing where.
What the duty actually is
Section 26 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 places a duty on specified authorities, listed in Schedule 6, to have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism. Schools and colleges are specified authorities. An employment agency is not. The duty sits on the school, and agency staff working there fall within that school’s arrangements.
What it says about training
| Paragraph | What it says |
|---|---|
| 157 | Appropriate members of staff should have sufficient training to recognise susceptibility to terrorism and know what action to take, including the setting’s internal referral arrangements |
| 158 | "It is for each setting to determine who the appropriate members of staff are and how frequently training should occur", proportionate to local risk and the type of setting |
| 159 | The DSL or Prevent lead should receive more in-depth training, and "it is recommended that this training is updated at least every two years" |
| 160 | Settings should do their own due diligence on external training providers and consider whether material is from an authoritative source |
So where does annual come from?
What a supply teacher actually needs to know
- That the Prevent duty is part of safeguarding, not a separate counter-terrorism exercise sitting alongside it.
- How to tell critical thinking, provocative opinions and adolescent testing from a genuine concern. Getting this wrong in either direction causes harm.
- That the response is to raise it with the designated safeguarding lead in that building, not to investigate, and not to confront a pupil.
- That a referral to Channel is voluntary and support-based, not a criminal process.
- That the concern gets raised before you leave the site, like any other safeguarding concern.
Why this matters commercially
Being right about this is a differentiator. A compliance manager who has been told by three providers that Prevent training is legally required annually, and then reads paragraph 158, learns something useful about which provider to trust. There is no need to overstate a requirement that agencies are going to meet anyway.