Home Office: Protective security schemes for places of worship

Overview

Overview of the schemes

In 2023 and 2024, the Home Office is continuing to provide protective security measures to places of worship under two schemes:

Places of Worship Protective Security Funding Scheme
Protective Security for Mosques Scheme

The schemes provide funding for places of worship and associated faith community centres that are vulnerable to hate crime. These schemes aim to reduce hate crime happening at places of worship so that people can feel safe to attend worship and practise their religion freely.

Through these schemes, vulnerable places of worship can apply for physical protective security measures, such as CCTV, secure fencing, and intruder alarms.

Applicants to the Protective Security for Mosques Scheme are also able to apply for security guarding services.

The application process for the Places of Worship Protective Security Funding Scheme was open from 21 June 2023 until 5 September 2023. The application process for the Protective Security for Mosques Scheme remains open.

For places of worship that are successful in applying to the schemes, security measures will be provided and installed free of charge. This includes any maintenance costs for one year from the installation date (such as for CCTV or for monitored intruder alarm systems).

However, you should be aware that the Home Office cannot fund any additional costs that might result from measures being installed, such as the cost of applying for planning permission or any preparatory work needed (such as ground clearance).

They will confirm the number and type of measures that they are able to provide following your site survey and a final review by the Home Office.

Esotec Limited is the Home Office’s delivery partner for physical protective security measures and will be the main point of contact for places of worship who are successful in going forward to the site survey stage. The supplier of security guarding services will be announced later in the year. Successful applicants to the Protective Security for Mosques scheme who have applied for guarding services will be informed as soon as possible.

Who can apply

You should apply to the schemes:

if you have experienced hate crime at your place of worship, or
if you feel that your place of worship is vulnerable to hate crime; for example, if hate crime has happened at other places of worship or sites in your community, or if people attending your place of worship have experienced hate crime in the local area

The types of places of worship that can apply under the schemes include (but are not limited to):

churches
gurdwaras
mosques
temples
associated faith community centres (for example, a community centre where regular worship takes place that is near a place of worship and run by that place of worship)

Muslim places of worship and their associated faith community centres will be allocated to the Protective Security for Mosques Scheme. All other faiths, except the Jewish community, will be allocated to the Places of Worship Protective Security Funding Scheme. A separate funding scheme is available to provide security measures for the Jewish community.

If your place of worship has received funding through the Places of Worship Protective Security Funding Scheme in 2021 to 2022 or 2022 to 2023, you may still apply. However, funding for places of worship that have received funding in the last two years will be at the discretion of the Home Office and will only be awarded where there is very strong evidence of an ongoing vulnerability to hate crime. This is to ensure that as many places of worship as possible are able to access funding for protective security measures.

If you represent a mosque that has received funding previously, they encourage you to apply for guarding services if you feel that security guarding would benefit your mosque and attending worshippers.

Charity status

Places of worship and associated faith community centres in England and Wales are normally charitable and required by law to register as charities if their income from all sources is over £5,000 a year. Some churches are currently excepted from registration.

If you are lawfully exempt, you will be required as part of your application to include a written confirmation of your exemption and the justification for your exemption. You must upload this written confirmation to the application form on your organisation’s letter headed paper.

If you are not registered as a charity and are not exempt, you will need to register with the Charity Commission before applying to the scheme.

If you would like advice and support on completing the application to register as a charity, are unsure about whether you need to register, or have any other queries about registering as a charity, please contact, faithoutreach@charitycommission.gov.uk.

Relevant updates

30 October 2024

Guidance updated as the application process for the Protective Security for Mosques Scheme remains open.

What the schemes cover

The types of physical protective security measures available are listed below, but you do not need to decide which measures you would like to apply for now. If your application is successful, a survey of your place of worship will be carried out. During this site survey, Esotec Limited will discuss with you the most appropriate measures for your particular site, based on recommendations made to them by the police DOCO (Designing Out Crime Officer):

CCTV (fixed cameras, not pan-tilt cameras)
secure fencing and/or railings (no more than 2.1m high)
manually operated pedestrian and vehicle gates
door hardening, locks and mailbox / mail bag
reinforcing glazed windows (with anti-shatter film or bars/grilles only)
intruder alarms including integrated smoke/heat detection
door entry access control (fob or keypad)
video intercom systems
lighting (building mounted)

If your application is successful, the schemes will cover the cost of all security equipment (as agreed by Esotec Limited and the Home Office) and installation at your place of worship. However, the schemes cannot be used to fund:

required planning permission
general building improvements
standard security upgrades (for example, if measures installed under this scheme become outdated after a number of years)
measures to tackle anti-social behaviour, lead theft, or other criminality unconnected with hate crime

Muslim places of worship and their associated faith community centres are also eligible for security guarding services under the Protective Security for Mosques Scheme. Applicants can decide if they would prefer to apply for physical protective security measures or security guarding services only, or both. A similar site survey will be carried out for successful applicants to decide the most appropriate guarding regime for each location. The supplier of security guarding services will be announced later in the year.

Application Notes

In order to submit a valid application, you will need to show that:

hate crimes or hate incidents have happened at your place of worship, or
hate crime has happened in your local area and you think there is a high chance that your place of worship could also be targeted

You will need to provide evidence that the community at your place of worship is vulnerable to the kind of hate crime that targets people because of their religion and race.

Any crime can be classed as a hate crime if the offender has demonstrated, or been motivated by, hostility based on:

race
religion
disability
sexual orientation
transgender identity

These schemes focus on hate crimes motivated by religion and race. Applicants should provide a detailed description of all hate crimes and incidents that your place of worship has experienced. If you feel that your place of worship is vulnerable to hate crime, but has not experienced any hate crime incidents directly, please provide:

details of the incidents that have happened in your local area
why you think your place of worship may also be the target of similar hate crime attacks

Please include details about how these incidents have affected worshippers in your community:

how did they make people feel?
were people frightened?
did people stop attending worship or other events at the site?

You may also provide supporting evidence with your application form. This could be photographs of damage or graffiti at your place of worship, police crime reports, or local newspaper reports. You can upload a maximum of 10 files of evidence in support of your application.

Here are some examples of the types of evidence they are looking for, but there may be other examples you would like to include:

photographs/reports of incidents at your place of worship/associated faith community centre or nearby
police reports of a hate crime or incident at your place of worship/associated faith community centre or nearby
a letter or email from your local police force confirming that your institution is in an area where there has been high incidence of religiously motivated hate crimes
evidence of particular tensions in the community e.g. from a local authority community coordinator
reports of experiences of hate crime or verbal abuse from worshippers at your place of worship/associated faith community centre
records and/or time and date logs of incidents that have occurred at your place of worship or associated community centre, or its nearby surroundings
a survey or consensus of people in your faith community showing how they feel about hate crimes that have happened at your place of worship or feelings of vulnerability about hate crime in your local community

Site Survey

If your application successfully demonstrates your vulnerability to hate crime, Esotec Limited will arrange to visit your place of worship with a local ‘Designing Out Crime Officer’ (DOCO). DOCOs are qualified experts in crime prevention and environment/building design. They will look at your current security arrangements and recommend the most appropriate physical protective security measures for your site. The recommended measures will be designed to reduce your place of worship’s vulnerability to hate crime.

See full Guidance.

Application guidance

Your application is more likely to be successful if you:

provide clear evidence to explain how and why your place of worship and the people who worship there are vulnerable to hate crime
detail all hate crime incidents experienced at your place of worship and use clear evidence to show what happened wherever you can (for example, an applicant who has suffered hate graffiti should upload photos of the graffiti)
tell us about the impact of these incidents on worshippers, which could include reports from people who experienced or witnessed the hate crime explaining how the incident made them feel and how it has affected them (for example, whether it stopped them attending worship)

Applications in previous years that that were unsuccessful tended to only provide limited evidence and/or did not clarify why their place of worship was vulnerable to hate crime. For example, not explaining what photographs showed or only providing police incident reference numbers, but not explaining what had happened.

Without clear and detailed evidence of your place of worship’s vulnerability to hate crime, your application is unlikely to be successful.

Examples

For examples of what successful and unsuccessful applications might look lik, visit webpage.

Track grant Notes