Contest is the United Kingdom’s long-term strategy for countering international terrorism and the violent extremism that lies behind it. Building upon Contest, public service agreement (PSA) 26 aims to reduce the risk to the UK and its interests overseas from international terrorism. To achieve this aim, the Government’s specific objectives are to:
stop terrorist attacks;
where we cannot stop an attack, to mitigate its impact;
strengthen our overall protection against terrorist attack; and
stop people becoming terrorists or supporting violent extremism.
Developing and delivering the strategy involves Government Departments, local authorities, the police and other emergency services, the security and intelligence agencies, voluntary organisations, the business sector and partners from across the world. Effectiveness of the strategy is assessed against key outcomes, supported by performance indicators, included in the PSA delivery agreement on countering terrorism. A summary of the PSA was published in October 20071. Progress in delivering the PSA will be reported directly to the Prime Minister on a bi-annual basis and, so far as it is possible and consistent with national security, scrutiny arrangements for this PSA, including parliamentary scrutiny, will mirror those in place for other PSAs with progress reports made public during the CSR period.
1 http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/B/9/pbr_csr07_psa26.pdf