Communities secretary, John Denham, has warned he could co-ordinate investigations into alleged ‘spying' on young Muslims by public staff. Amid allegations that the Government's ‘Prevent' strategy to tackle violent extremism has led some organisations to share intrusive data on innocent individuals, Mr Denham told The MJ that CLG did not possess firm evidence that public staff were in contravention of Whitehall guidance. But he claimed there was no need for an investigation, as the allegations were anecdotal, and there was no evidence that published guidance had been breached. ‘There's no secret that one of the aims of Prevent is to make sure communities are able to give proper support to young people who might be vulnerable to being drawn into violent extremism,' he said. ‘[Home secretary] Alan Johnson and I have made it clear that if anybody produced any evidence that what's happening at local level was different to what we've said in the national guidance then we would look into it.'
