Places of Worship Protective Security Scheme
Apply for security to protect places of worship and associated community centres.
Applies to England and Wales
The Places of Worship Protective Security Scheme is provided free of charge by the Home Office to protect places of worship and associated community centres in England and Wales.
This scheme is not currently open for applications. Details on future application windows will be published here when available.
This scheme is for all faiths except the Muslim and Jewish communities - these have separate schemes:
Who can apply
You can apply to the scheme if you are:
- a place of worship (buildings where people gather to worship together, such as churches, temples and gurdwaras)
- an associated community centre (a faith-based community centre that is run by or located near a place of worship and where regular worship takes place)
You will also need to be a registered charity (or exempt from registering as a charity).
There are other Home Office schemes that offer protective security for other faith communities.
You should apply if:
- you have experienced hate crime at your place of worship or community centre
- you feel that your place of worship or community centre is vulnerable to hate crime
- there has been hate crime in your local area towards other places of worship or people who attend them
What the scheme covers
You can apply for physical security measures, such as CCTV, alarms, gates and secure fencing.
Your site will be surveyed to assess your security needs and what measures are appropriate.
All security measures are provided for free by the Home Office. For some physical security measures, this includes any maintenance costs for one year from the installation date.
How to apply
You should only complete one application form for each place of worship or community centre in each round of the scheme.
If your place of worship and community centre are located on the same site, you only need to complete one application form.
You will need to provide details about your site including:
- the name, address and religion of your place of worship or community centre
- the registered charity number of your organisation, or a letter confirming your organisation’s exemption from registering as a charity
- the contact details of a responsible person who will be your site’s point of contact
- a summary of any security concerns or hate crime experienced at your place of worship or community centre, and the impact these have on the people who use it
You can save your application form and come back to it later.
This scheme is not currently open for applications. Details on future application windows will be published here when available.
Data protection
To find out more about how we process and protect your information, and your rights in relation to this, see the privacy information notice.