The Home Office just left counter-terrorism cash unspent as terror referrals hit a record high

The National Audit Office has just found something odd.

The Home Office left nearly a third of its own counter-terrorism budget unspent last year.

And at the same time, referrals to that same programme hit a record high.

So let's break this down.

The programme is called Prevent. It's been running since 2007, and its job is simple: stop people becoming terrorists, or stop them supporting terrorism, in the UK and abroad.

The NAO published its report on it earlier today. It's called Reducing Radicalisation: The Prevent Programme.

And here's the headline number. The Home Office had a Prevent budget of £23.4 million for 2025-26.

It underspent that budget by 28 per cent.

Now, is that a one-off? No.

Over the last six years, from 2020-21 to 2025-26, the Home Office underspent its internal Prevent budget by £33.7 million in real terms.

That's an average underspend of £5.6 million a year. Or 17 per cent, every single year.

So while the money sat unused, what was happening with demand?

It was rising. Fast.

Referrals to Prevent have gone up every year since 2020. And in the year to September 2025, they hit a record 10,293.

Prevent works through 159 multi-agency panels, called Channel panels, across England and Wales. It sits inside the government's wider £3 billion counter-terrorism budget, though Prevent itself is only a small slice of that.

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown is the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee. He says quote "a mismatch between the record-high demand and yet persistent underspending".

He says that raises serious questions about how the Home Office is managing the programme.

Gareth Davies runs the National Audit Office. He says Prevent is operating in an increasingly complex environment, with record referrals and changing patterns of risk.

And the NAO itself went further than that.

It said there is little justification for this level of underspending. Especially when the Home Office itself admits local areas are under pressure, and has pushed back some of its own research.