Participants broadly agreed that the UK currently lacks sufficient analytical capability to comprehensively measure extremism, social cohesion and democratic resilience.
There was broad support for the development of a new national index capable of integrating attitudinal, behavioural and social indicators in order to better identify vulnerabilities and emerging risks.
Discussions explored a number of possible functions for such an index, including identifying geographic hotspots, tracking trends over time, informing policy interventions and improving resource allocation.
It was also argued that any future index should avoid framing communities solely through a security lens. Instead, participants suggested the framework should focus equally on resilience, cohesion and protective factors.
The importance of integrating multiple forms of data was also emphasised in the room, including survey data, local authority reporting, online monitoring, hate crime statistics and indicators related to democratic trust and participation.
There was also debate around governance and ownership. Participants overwhelmingly argued that any future index should remain operationally independent from government in order to maintain credibility and reduce concerns around politicisation.
The possibility of establishing threshold indicators capable of triggering preventative interventions was also discussed. Contributors stressed that any measurement framework should directly inform practical action rather than functioning solely as a research exercise.