How is the National Domestic Extremist Unit funded?
"Historically, the national domestic extremism units have not revealed the level of funding or staffing that they have; this decision was based on operational security factors.
"However, over the last two years, the police service, through Home Office funding have been able to develop a national counter terrorism and domestic extremism network across England and Wales into which the national coordinator for domestic extremism and the three national DE units are linked. We are now able to scale up or down the level of staffing that is necessary to support forces in the investigation of DE criminality, commensurate with the threat at any time.
"Investigative work (the majority) into the criminal activity of domestic extremists is carried out by police forces with some support the national units. It is therefore not possible to establish precisely at any time how many police officers and staff are working on domestic extremism.
"In that context, we are satisfied that a general disclosure about funding and staff levels across the three units should be disclosed in the interests of transparency and accountability as follows:
"The annual funding is approximately £9m across all three units; this money is provided jointly from the Home Office, police forces and from the CT Grant (Home Office). The £2m that features on the ACPO accounts statement for the DE project is part of this overall funding.
"The level of staffing across the three units is about 100 of which two thirds are police officers and one third are police staff.
"NETCU is a non operational unit that provides protective security advice and support to police forces, to industry, academia and other agencies; NETCU has sixteen staff of which three are police officers."
