Nearly half of people assessed to be susceptible to Islamic-State terrorism refused the offer of help from the Government's flagship counter-extremism programme, according to reports.

The Channel programme offers support and mentoring to those deemed to be vulnerable to being drawn into extremism, but it is voluntary and those offered help can turn it down.

During the last financial year, some 47% of the 245 people offered support through the Channel scheme where "Islamic State" was flagged as the type of extremism, refused it, according to the BBC's World At One programme.

The figures emerged in a Freedom of Information Act request relating to a Home Office database.

Khalid Mahmood, the Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Bar, where a number of schools were targeted by hard-line Muslims in the Trojan Horse scandal, called for the Channel programme to be made compulsory.

He told the World At One programme "the whole strategy needs to be looked at" and warned that some mentors are "non-violent radicalisers" who are "reinforcing the ideology" rather than countering it.

Mr Mahmood said: "Also what needs to be looked at is the fact that the number of Channel providers is very stagnant, there are hardly any change in providers that the local police authorities use.

"So you have got a group of people who rarely change - there is no competition, there is no understanding of doing something differently in terms of providing Channel, and that is why it has not been as successful as it should be."

He added: "I think it should become mandatory...but unless you have the right providers, unless you have people who are actually not going to reinforce that ideology, people who are actually trying to move people away from that ideology and the ethos of what they are being taught - that is the only way you will move forward and try to de-radicalise some of these people.

"And we are not doing that at the moment in Channel."

He also called for more resources to be ploughed into the programme.

Channel aims to combat extremism early on to prevent people from becoming further radicalised and turning to violence.

Many people referred to the programme are children.