The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC)

The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) is an all-source intelligence organisation closely related to the United Kingdom Security Service which provides advice to the British government and firms within the Critical National Infrastructure on terrorist threats.
Since its establishment, JTAC has become widely recognised as an authoritative and effective mechanism for analysing all-source intelligence on the activities, intentions and capabilities of international terrorists who may threaten UK and allied interests worldwide. It sets threat levels and issues timely threat warnings (relating to international terrorism) as well as providing more in-depth reports on trends, terrorist networks and capabilities.
Working especially closely with MI5’s International Counter-Terrorism branch, which manages investigations into terrorist activity in the UK, JTAC brings together counter-terrorist expertise from the police, and government departments and agencies analysing and assessing all intelligence relating to international terrorism, at home and overseas.
The threat, which are designed to give a broad indication of the likelihood of a terrorist attack, are divided into 5 levels:
LOW means an attack is unlikely.
MODERATE means an attack is possible, but not likely
SUBSTANTIAL means an attack is a strong possibility
SEVERE means an attack is highly likely
CRITICAL means an attack is expected imminently
Since 2014, the UK threat level is generally set to ‘SEVERE’, meaning an attack is highly likely. Following the aftermath of Manchester’s attack the level was for few days arose to ‘CRITICAL’ decreasing on the 27th May 2017, back to ‘SEVERE’.

The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) is an all-source intelligence organisation closely related to the United Kingdom Security Service which provides advice to the British government and firms within the Critical National Infrastructure on terrorist threats.
Established in June 2003 and based in MI5's headquarters at Thames House in London, the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) forms a key element of the national intelligence machinery in general and of the CONTEST strategy issued in 2011.
The self-standing organisation, which is comprised by representatives from 16 government departments and agencies, the DIS and other representatives including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Home Office. It is accountable to the Director General of MI5, who in turn reports to the government's Joint Intelligence Committee on JTAC's activities. An Oversight Board, chaired by the Cabinet Office, ensures that JTAC meets customer requirements by monitoring the effectiveness of JTAC’s systems for engaging with customer departments.
Since its establishment, JTAC has become widely recognised as an authoritative and effective mechanism for analysing all-source intelligence on the activities, intentions and capabilities of international terrorists who may threaten UK and allied interests worldwide. It sets threat levels and issues timely threat warnings (relating to international terrorism) as well as providing more in-depth reports on trends, terrorist networks and capabilities.
Working especially closely with MI5’s International Counter-Terrorism branch, which manages investigations into terrorist activity in the UK, JTAC brings together counter-terrorist expertise from the police, and government departments and agencies analysing and assessing all intelligence relating to international terrorism, at home and overseas.
The collection, analysis and assessment of this secret intelligence is guided by the Joint Intelligence Committee, which each year establishes requirements and priorities for the work of the intelligence community. These are put to the Ministerial Committee for the Intelligence Services for approval, with advice provided by the Permanent Secretaries’ Committee on the Intelligence Services. Machinery at the centre of government, in the Cabinet Office, is responsible for the tasking of JTAC and the other Agencies in accordance with agreed requirements and priorities, funding and performance monitoring. This machinery is led by the Permanent Secretary, Intelligence, Security and Resilience.
Intelligence collected by JTAC and the other two Agencies is passed directly in the form of reports to customer departments in Government, where it informs and assists decision-making. It contributes, with other sources of information, to threat assessment work and other longer-term analysis and assessment. Intelligence reporting from the Agencies is also used to support field operations by the Armed Forces and the law enforcement agencies.
Assessments are used to inform the threat levels disseminated through the Security Service, Home Office and Ministry of Defence. Until very recently these threat levels were promulgated in a form known as the BIKINI state and Tesseral State, while the current threat system described as well in CONTEST is similar to, and largely aligned with, the US Department of Homeland Security rating system.
The threat, which are designed to give a broad indication of the likelihood of a terrorist attack, are divided into 5 levels:
LOW means an attack is unlikely.
MODERATE means an attack is possible, but not likely
SUBSTANTIAL means an attack is a strong possibility
SEVERE means an attack is highly likely
CRITICAL means an attack is expected imminently
In reaching a judgement on the appropriate threat level in any given circumstance several factors need to be taken into account.
These include:
Available intelligence. It is rare that specific threat information is available and can be relied upon. More often, judgements about the threat will be based on a wide range of information, which is often fragmentary, including the level and nature of current terrorist activity, comparison with events in other countries and previous attacks. Intelligence is only ever likely to reveal part of the picture.
• Terrorist capability. An examination of what is known about the capabilities of the terrorists in question and the method they may use based on previous attacks or from intelligence. This would also analyse the potential scale of the attack.
• Terrorist intentions. Using intelligence and publicly available information to examine the overall aims of the terrorists and the ways they may achieve them including what sort of targets they would consider attacking.
• Timescale. The threat level expresses the likelihood of an attack in the near term. Some attacks take years to plan, while others are put together more quickly. In the absence of specific intelligence, a judgement will need to be made about how close an attack might be to fruition. Threat levels do not have any set expiry date, but are regularly subject to review in order to ensure that they remain current.
Since 27th May 2017, the UK threat level, set by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, has been set to ‘SEVERE’, meaning an attack here is highly likely. Before that it was raised to ‘CRITICAL’ due to the attack in Manchester. Islamist terrorism has remained the principal threat.

JTAC is an all-source intelligence organisation closely related to the United Kingdom Security Service which provides advice to the British government and firms within the Critical National Infrastructure on terrorist threats. The involvement of actors belonging to different departments and agencies of the British government guarantees a strong expertise and prompt knowledge sharing.

The JTAC brings together all those agencies and departments working on international terrorism within the UK soil and abroad.
Although the strategy has been tailored according to the needs of the United Kingdom, both the concept of a multi-agency centre and the areas of practice can be easily transferred to other similar scenarios, both an international and national.

JTAC’s strategy foresees a periodic evaluation drawn on:
• Planning assumptions which describe how the agency expects the terrorist threat to develop over the next four years;
• Regular and more detailed classified assessments of the current terrorist threat to UK interests: threat is assessed on the basis of both the intent and capability of an individual or group to commit a terrorist act; and
• A National Risk Assessment which identifies the specific disruptive events – including both terrorist attacks and natural hazards – which the UK could face over the next years and considers their likelihood and impact. This confidential assessment is conducted annually and draws on expertise from a wide range of departments and agencies of government, including JTAC threat assessments. The National Risk Register is the public version of the National Risk Assessment.
Based on these assessments, the Government will set objectives for each of the four CONTEST work streams and, with further consideration for available resources, identify the capabilities needed to meet those objectives.
To maintain their effectiveness the intelligence and security Agencies must be able to operate in secret. However, it is also important in a democratic society that there are effective safeguards and means of overseeing their work, with clearly defined political accountability for their activities.
The Joint Intelligence Committee periodically scrutinises the performance of JTAC and the other Agencies in meeting the collection requirements placed upon them.
Effective accountability and oversight is provided in three different ways:
• through Ministers, who are accountable to Parliament for the activities of the Agencies;
• through Parliament itself, to provide politically independent oversight of Agency activities; and
• through independent Commissioners, who provide judicial expertise on the Agencies’ performance of their statutory duties, and an Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which investigates complaints by individuals about the Agencies’ conduct towards them or about interception of their communications.
The Agencies are also overseen by two Commissioners, appointed under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA). They are required to hold, or have held, high judicial office. The Rt. Hon. Sir Peter Gibson currently holds the position of Intelligence Services Commissioner. He reviews the issue by the relevant Secretary of State of warrants and authorisations for operations by the Agencies and Ministry of Defence (MOD) which fall under his oversight, namely warrants issued under the Intelligence Services Act 1994 and warrants and authorisations for surveillance and agents under RIPA. The Rt. Hon. Sir Paul Kennedy currently holds the position of Interception of Communications Commissioner. He reviews the issue and operation of warrants permitting the interception of mail and telecommunications and the acquisition of communications data by the intelligence and security Agencies, MOD and law enforcement organisations, and the arrangements for handling the material. The Commissioners are able to visit the Agencies and relevant departments to discuss any case they wish to examine in more detail. They must, by law, be given access to whatever documents and information they need and at the end of each reporting year they submit reports to the Prime Minister. These reports are subsequently laid before Parliament and published – see www.intelligence.gov.uk for links to them. The Commissioners also assist the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, a body established in October 2000 to investigate, among other things, complaints by individuals about the Agencies’ conduct towards them or about interception of their communications. Anyone, regardless of nationality, can complain if they believe that their communications or human rights have been violated or abused by any of the Agencies. The Tribunal enquires into each complaint and investigates whether the Agencies have acted improperly. If the Tribunal upholds a complaint, it has the power to order such remedial action as it sees fit including, if it deems appropriate, the award of damages to the complainant. The records of the security and intelligence Agencies are protected by a ‘blanket’ exemption, in accordance with Section 3(4) of the Public Records Act 1958, from the legal obligation to transfer public records to The National Archives (TNA). Similarly, information held by or relating to the Agencies is exempt from the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Furthermore, in 2004 an interdepartmental Advisory Group on Security and Intelligence Records was established under Cabinet Office chairmanship with representatives from the Agencies, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, MOD, Home Office and TNA. It also includes representatives of the academic community: Professor Christopher Andrew of the University of Cambridge and Professor Peter Hennessy of the University of London. The purpose of the Group, as set out in its terms of reference, is “to facilitate scholarly development and use, by historians and other researchers, of security and intelligence records that are already available, and to facilitate and identify other security and intelligence records which might be made publicly available”.

Yes, but very low.
Internal cooperation within the relevant government agencies and departments. The JTAC, the other two security Agencies and those who use their intelligence products maintain close relationships. The Agencies work closely with each other, combining forces wherever appropriate in operational work, sharing elements of infrastructure and producing co-ordinated intelligence reports.
However, it would be suggested to involve representatives of the academia and civil society organisations which could support the risk assessment thought their expertise on the social-economic-political and cultural roots of the problem.

Although working as a self-standing organisation, JTAC is part of MI5. MI5's budget is paid from the Single Intelligence Account (SIA) which also provides funding for the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) and Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).
The SIA's budget is decided by Ministers through the Spending Review. This process helps Ministers decide how much to spend on security and intelligence, in line with decisions on overall government spending.
The SIA has provided a settlement of just under £2 billion each year since April 2011. The SIA provided £1.8 billion in funding for 2015-16, increasing over the Spending Review period to £2.3 billion in 2020-21. The agencies are also able to bid for additional resources from the Joint Security Fund, which is shared with the Foreign Office, Ministry of Defence and Departments for International Development. The breakdowns for the individual agencies are not published for security reasons.
At any one time the UK faces a range of covert threats to its security and MI5 has only finite resources with which to counter them. MI5 prioritises the threats and allocate resources accordingly, taking into account the national intelligence priorities set by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC). While they don't publish MI5's share of the SIA budget, resources are used: 63% international counterterrorism (JTAC), 18% Northern-Ireland related terrorism and 19% counterespionage and proactive security.

Brady, E 2016, 'An Analysis of the UK’s Counter-Terrorism Strategy, CONTEST, and the Challenges in its Evaluation' Sicherheitspolitik-Blog. Available at https://risweb.st-andrews.ac.uk/portal/en/researchoutput/an-aanalysis-of-the-uks-counterterrorism-strategy-contest-and-the-challenges-in-its-evaluation(0264d6b6-e321-4ba9-a7be-28201e2b80a2)/export.html [accessed 14/08/2017];
The National Intelligence Machinery, Cabinet Office and National security and intelligence (19/10/2010). Available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-intelligence-machinery [accessed 14/08/2017];
CONTEST The United Kingdom’s Strategy for Countering Terrorism, HM Government (July 2011). Available at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/ [accessed 14/08/2017];
CONTEST The United Kingdom’s Strategy for Countering Terrorism Annual Report 2015, HM Government (July 2011). Available at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/ [accessed 14/08/2017];
Security Service MI5 Website, Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre. Available at https://www.mi5.gov.uk/joint-terrorism-analysis-centre [accessed 14/08/2017];
Security Service MI5 Website, People and Organisation. Available at https://www.mi5.gov.uk/people-and-organisation [accessed 14/08/2017];
Security Service MI5 Website, Threat Levels. Available at https://www.mi5.gov.uk/threat-levels [accessed 14/08/2017];
Gov.UK Website, UK terror threat reduced to 'Severe' (27/05/2017). Available at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-threat-level-reduced-to-severe [accessed 14/08/2017];

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https://www.mi5.gov.uk/people-and-organisation
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-intelligence-machinery
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https://www.mi5.gov.uk/threat-levels
https://www.gov.uk
http://www.sicherheitspolitik-blog.de/2016/10/10/an-analysis-of-the-uks-counter-terrorism-strategy-contest-and-the-challenges-in-its-evaluation/

The joint-agency programme comprises measures that aim to prevent, protect, prepare and reduce potential terrorist threats to national security on the British soil and interests. The presence of an organism of excellence with functions related to all-source intelligence gathering, risk assessment and prevention, early intervention and warning guarantees extraordinary information sharing between the government’s agencies and departments. The involvement of periodic assessment mechanisms in order to shape the national strategy according to the real needs and the evaluation and review bodies, which guarantee the respect of human rights make the approach proactive and in constant evolution.

The joint initiative and close relation between the bodies enables to assess the nature and extent of the threat in the country very proactively. Information are analysed and processed on a shared basis, while threat levels, issues warning of threats and other terrorist-related subjects are set and updated very quickly so that customers from a wide range of governments departments and agencies can receive information and update instantaneously. Moreover, other in-depth reports on trend, terrorist networks and capabilities are produced on a regular basis and tailored to the needs of the audience.
Considering the approach, the expertise and capabilities of the security actors involved it can be assessed that the strategy provides extremely high effectiveness.

Although the periodical scrutiny on performance and assessment of needs of JTAC by JIC, Ministers, Parliament, independent commissioners and an Investigatory Powers Tribunal, a correct evaluation of JTAC can’t be made due to the lack of quantitative data. The fact that many ongoing investigations operate in secrecy has resulted in few details becoming public, and general statements being the norm. This has led to inconsistency. These vague statements attempt to inform the public that counter-terrorism measures are successful, often identifying a vague number of foiled plots in a given year, or since a given time. However, until evaluation of these measures can take place, through independent investigations, it is difficult to accurately assess whether the various measures are working.

The technical impact of JTAC’s deliverables is extremely high. The joint-agencies approach on dealing with terrorism and producing early warning, early prevention, risk assessment analysis and the subsequent knowledge sharing to the security agencies and operational application at the low level ensures a prompt and tailored intervention according to the needs.
On the other hands, as part of the UK Counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST has been accused from several sources coming from the academia and civil society to have a misleading focus on the PREVENT pillar. If in one hand he treats the issue as ‘us’ and ‘them’ without allocating enough resources on integration, on the other the majority of its focus is on Islamist terrorist threats without taking into account the rapidly erupting hanger against Muslims and the increasing of extreme right-wing related hate crimes resulted on the aftermath of Brexit.

The sustainability of the practice is enhanced by its ability to transmit promptly horizontal coordination, which strengthens the impact of the integrated approach.
The joint-body allows to transfer skills and knowledge to the diverse actors who are or might be involved with the arisen situation and potential threat.
Due to its expertise, the JTAC is considered as a centre of excellence for the production of threats analysis in Europe.
On the other hands, when thinking about transferability of the practice in other contexts, it has to be taken into account the different historical approaches to security pursued on the EU member states, which could slow and alter the introduction of the practice. Therefore, although the JTAC is a milestone for the EU Terrorist Analysis strategies, it would be advised in case of transferability to other contexts to consider the societal, cultural, economic and political context of the area.

The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) is a self-standing organisation, which is comprised by representatives from 16 government departments and agencies, the DIS and other representatives including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Home Office. It is accountable to the Director General of MI5, who in turn reports to the government's Joint Intelligence Committee on JTAC's activities. An Oversight Board, chaired by the Cabinet Office, ensures that JTAC meets customer requirements by monitoring the effectiveness of JTAC’s systems for engaging with customer departments.
While on the strategical side, the mechanisms provide high inclusiveness of the relevant security actors, it does not foresee the involvement of those stakeholders working at the community level on prevention to violent extremism leading to terrorism, which could support greatly the risk and threat analysis due to their expertise and understanding of the socio, cultural and political root causes of the problem.
Therefore, it is suggested to include to the mechanism periodical meetings with those practitioners working on the cause of the phenomena (socialists, psychologists, social workers, teachers, civil society organisations, front-line practitioners) which due to their expert knowledge could give extremely beneficial suggestions for more comprehensive approaches. As a result, the centre would be able to re-dimension and adapt its coercive strategies to the needs of the current society.