The Home Office is continuing the funding of the Jewish community protective security grant for 2017 to 2018, Home Secretary Amber Rudd told the Jewish protective security advice body the Community Security Trust (CST) in a speech.
The UK Government will provide £13.4m for security measures in the Jewish community in the coming year, she said: “This money will go towards security guards and protection at independent and state Jewish schools, nurseries, synagogues and community sites.”
She quoted recent CST statistics showing a rise in the number of antisemitic hate crime incidents recorded last year. She said that the Government was also working with internet service providers to demote hateful material so that it doesn’t come up at the top of internet searches.
For the speech in full visit the Home Office website.
About CST
In 2016, CST ran several security officer training courses, including residential. Last year also saw the introduction of the CST Level One Course, which aims to equip volunteers of Jewish communities who already assist with security, or who are interested, with basics. Some 750 took that course in 2016. For details visit https://cst.org.uk/. For the CST’s 2016 annual review, detailing the trust’s work and threats (physical and cyber) click here.
Background
As featured in the September and October 2016 print issues of Professional Security, the Home Office last summer offered a grant scheme for places of worship to bid for money for security equipment (not day to day running of site security). That did not apply to Jewish places of worship as they were already part of a scheme.
