Forensic Science Service

Written evidence submitted by Northumbria University Centre for Forensic Science (FSS 70)

i. I am Director of the Northumbria University Centre of Forensic Science, the only academic centre in the world interested in both the scientific and socio-economic dimensions of forensic science and medicine.

ii. I have worked as an academic forensic scientist for 17 years. I began with the Sheffield University Department of Forensic Pathology-a once world renowned Department. This became part of the Forensic Science Service in 2005 and will cease to exist in a few weeks time. From 2005 to 2010 I was Director of the Forensic Science Program at the University of Toronto in Canada. I have some knowledge of the Canadian Federal and Provincial systems for forensic science service delivery, and the academic model in Ontario.

iii. I have made expert submissions in over thirty serious criminal cases in the United Kingdom, having received instructions from both prosecution and defence. The most senior Court I have given evidence in has been the Court of Appeal.

iv. Prior to moving into academia in 1994 I had worked for six years as a systems analyst, and I have observed the process of change in UK forensic science from the comparative perspective of other public and private sector organizations-and of other models of financial, IT and managerial good practice.

v. I would like to offer the following submission on the issues laid out in your announcement of 19th January.

1. What will be the impact of the closure of the Forensic Science Service on forensic science and on the future development of forensic science in the UK?

1.1. The sudden and unexpected closure of a major forensic science service provider will, in the short term, lead to a reduction in the testing of evidence from scenes-of-crime, a diminution of the quality and reliability of some analyses, and the loss some testing services.

1.2. The immediate risk to the public is two-fold. The first is that physical evidence which may be critical in securing a conviction or, more importantly, the exoneration of an innocent person will not be tested properly or not tested at all. The second is that the potential growth of police involvement in forensic analyses via absorption of existing services will compromise procedural and scientific independence. All of these factors underlie a plethora of risks that have demonstrably led to miscarriages of justice and wrongful convictions in the past.

1.3. Credible alternative service providers do exist, however, and whilst restructuring may be piecemeal in part, there are prospects for reliable and affordable provision of forensic science services in the medium term.

1.4. The Forensic Science Service played an important role in the development of forensic science in the UK. It relied, however, on considerable Home Office patronage. This heavily skewed service provision, research and education in forensic science, and stifled development originating in the academic and private sectors.

1.5. These Home Office ‘gifted’ opportunities arising not as a consequence of internal innovation, but of external change may, paradoxically, have fostered a culture of entitlement within the organisation. Both research and development, and use of information technology, were cumbersome and costly.

2. What will be the implications of the closure on the quality and impartiality of forensic evidence used in the criminal justice system?

2.1. While the short term lack of stability in the market cannot be good for quality, the closure of the Forensic Science Service is not ultimately a quality issue. Other providers have aimed to achieve high quality standards and the Forensic Science Service is no longer the only quality forensic science service provider. A number of problems in high profile cases have demonstrated that the Forensic Science Service’s performance was not universally superior to those of other providers.

2.2. There is no reason why individual services should not be offered out to at least the standard of the Forensic Science Service. In some areas, other organisations have been more enthusiastic to adopt formal international quality standards. The Caddy report noted1, for example, that while both LGC Forensics and Cellmark were ISO 17025 compliant for low-template DNA analysis, the Forensic Science Service validation procedures were less than transparent. The issue of quality is an issue of regulation and accreditation-and of organisational culture, but not market structure.

2.3. The Forensic Science Service never was impartial. Its business was undertaken on behalf of the prosecution (Crown or police services). A common expectation among expert witnesses is that they undertake instructions from prosecution and defence in similar measure: the Forensic Science Service did not do this.

2.4. The Forensic Science Service was, however, more independent of the police services than the police laboratories had been. It was established to increase scientific and procedural independence.

2.5. There will be loss of scientific expertise, mitigated by the discontinuation of some entrenched practices.

2.6. The closure of the Forensic Science Service offers an opportunity for plurality within the Criminal Justice System, with different providers potentially able to undertake prosecution and defence work independently of each other in individual cases should they arise. This would offer symmetry of arms, but not symmetry of funds, as the defence is by comparison typically under-resourced financially.

3. What is the financial position of the Forensic Science Service?

3.1. My understanding is that competition and commodification of the forensic science sector has rendered the Forensic Science Service unprofitable, with no clear prospect of a return to surplus in the current market.

3.2. The publicised loss of £2M per month is, arguably, not an enormous cost, relatively, for the provision of an important national service underpinning the Criminal Justice System. Nevertheless, it is a deficit other providers have avoided without the benefit of substantial government subsidies.

4. What is the state of, and prospects for, the forensics market in the UK, specifically whether the private sector can carry out the work currently done by the Forensic Science Service and the volume and nature of the forensic work carried out by police forces?

4.1. My understanding is that profitability in the sector as a whole is marginal. Certain providers of small scale specialist services with limited overheads may be unaffected, but providers of comprehensive services and those working in core areas such as routine DNA analysis are struggling.

4.2. The closure of the Forensic Science Service may allow some services to be absorbed by existing providers, but it is difficult to see how this can apply to marginal or loss-making activities.

4.3. Police services will be unwilling or unable to pay rates for services that will be economically viable to providers of comprehensive and core services, while at the same time providers will be unable to raise prices to sustainable levels because of the risk of losing business to competitors.

4.4. The least competitive providers are likely to reduce their range of services, down-size or go out of business altogether. This may offer the opportunity for the remaining providers to stabilise their businesses.

4.5. Police services will seek to retrench non-complex testing ‘in house’, which would increase the volume of work carried out by police services. Larger services or consortia may seek to expand in-house testing to include certain activities not traditionally undertaken by police-such as routine DNA analysis.

4.6. Certain specialist services and even a comprehensive service from a single supplier may cease to be offered.

5. What are the alternatives to winding-down the Forensic Science Service?

5.1. There are none. Further subsidy to the Forensic Science Service would seem negligent.

5.2. To mitigate risk to the public and maintain confidence in the Criminal Justice System, the forensic science market must be properly regulated, quality assured and accredited. This may be achieved via licensing three or four independent providers.

5.3. A cost element must be built into regulatory and licensing policy, such that provision is economically sustainable, there is independence and pluralism in the system, and that some providers are able to over a comprehensive service in addition to commodified testing.

5.4. Forensic analysis must be carried out with independence from the police investigation. Rather than retrenching forensic services in-house, police services should be required to utilise independent forensic testing services on the evidence they have collected-including fingerprint comparison. This would have the added benefit of helping to sustain a regulated, but competitive market.

5.5. It is important that research and development in forensic science is sustained and promoted.

5.5.1. The research funds of £6-8M per annum from which the Forensic Science Service once benefited are greater than that enjoyed by many British Universities, but do not demonstrate productivity concomitant with the best University research.

5.5.2. The current Home Office model for forensic science research funding is opaque, uncompetitive and resistant to academic participation and peer review. At the same time, RCUK does not in reality significantly support research in forensic science.

5.5.3. Research funding in forensic science should be radically restructured to increase competitiveness, responsiveness, academic participation and peer review in forensic science research, and foster the development of University Departments of Forensic Science with strong links to the profession in research and education.

5.5.3.1. Forensic science should have its own sub-disciplinary panel in the Research Excellence Framework exercise-ideally, in the forthcoming exercise in 2014.

5.5.3.2. Research and development funds in forensic science currently controlled by the Home Office and its derivatives should be managed via a programme based on an open, competitive and pluralistic academic model. A levy should be placed on RCUK and channelled to this programme.

5.5.3.3. A forensic science research funding programme should be implemented with a peer review structure having a balance from the forensic science service providers, senior scientific support managers, academic forensic scientists, senior academic pure scientists and others.

5.5.4. No infrastructure has been available to academic forensic science during the period Home Office resources were given to the Forensic Science Service. Many items of equipment would be invaluable to University research and education, and mechanism to transfer them should be introduced.

5.5.5. There are many relevant recommendations relating to research in forensic science offered in the US National Research Council report Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States (2009).2

6. So far as they are known, are the arrangements for closing down the Forensic Science Service, making staff redundant and selling its assets adequate?

6.1. My understanding is that that planning for sustaining forensic science provision in some form is ongoing. It seems, however, that many individual scientists will, with the remaining forensic science service providers, have to ‘sink or swim’.

6.2. There does not seem to be any kind of coherent plan for the disposal of a wealth of valuable equipment in the interests of forensic science as a whole.

7. Declaration of interests

7.1. As an academic forensic scientist, I have been in partly in competition with the Forensic Science Service.

7.1.1. My doctorate at Sheffield University was in low-template DNA analysis and as a member of the Department of Forensic Pathology I sought to develop forensic applications in this area. I applied for very modest Home Office funds, but was told ‘the Forensic Science Service say they are thinking about doing that’. I could not understand why, especially with the enormous DNA backlog and pressure of DNA roll-out at the time, the Forensic Science Service scientists were not more receptive. Some five or more years later LCN-PCR appeared. Forensic Science Service LCN-PCR was regarded by police as an expensive and unreliable service, and had an unfortunate history in the Rachel Nickell, Omagh bombing and other cases.

7.1.2. I have found the Forensic Science Service to be condescending of University forensic science degree programmes and their graduates. This may not be without reason, but my experiences in Toronto could hardly have been different. There the Ontario Centre for Forensic Sciences and the Chief Forensic Pathologist were heavily involved in the design and delivery of our forensic science degree programme, and both they and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police forensic laboratories participated in research collaboration. Many of our graduates were employed in the profession as soon as they graduated.

7.1.3. The Ontario model is an excellent example of professional and academic partnership in research, education and practice. The Forensic Science Service did very little to foster academic development of the discipline in the UK.

7.1.4. Importantly, good Forensic Science degree programmes are excellent models for the teaching of STEM subjects embedded in an important social context, and seem to be attractive to a disproportionate number of female students and students from lower income backgrounds.

The closure of the Forensic Science Service offers an exciting opportunity for the development of forensic science in the UK. Its closure offers an opportunity for a far more openness, pluralism, cooperation and innovation, and for higher standards in forensic science education and research.

Professor Martin Paul Evison BSc (hons) MSc PhD MFSSoc

Northumbria University Centre for Forensic Science

14 February 2011

1 Caddy B, Taylor GR, Linacre AMT. A review of the science of low template DNA analysis. Home Office, Office of the Forensic Science Regulator, 2008.

2 National Research Council of the National Academies, Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward (Washington DC: The National Academies Press, 2009).