Summary
In March 2016, the Home Office published its ‘Forensic Science Strategy’. This was more than two years after the date originally promised to our predecessor Committee, and came without the ‘Biometric Strategy’ component that was originally planned.
The Strategy is vague about how the intended locally-negotiated non-standard procurement approach for police forces commissioning forensic services from the private sector will deliver the proposed ‘more consistent national approach’. It also lacks detail on the possibility of a joint biometrics and forensics service which risks being taken forward without the benefit of a published Biometrics Strategy.
Together, these weaknesses raise the question of whether the Forensics Strategy is a strategy at all: It is missing a coherent vision for forensic services and a route-map to deliver it. The impression instead is of a plan to produce a Strategy. That impression also arises from the fact that ‘scoping work’ on key areas is still underway, and because of an evident failure to consult widely on the Strategy before its publication.
The Government should acknowledge that the Forensics Strategy is an incomplete document which leaves too many issues under-developed to constitute a coherent description of the Government’s policy and direction in this important area. The Government should now aim, on the back of the hopefully imminent publication of its long-awaited Biometrics Strategy and the conclusion of the police’s currently underway forensics ‘scoping work’, to present a revised ‘draft Forensic Strategy’ for a full public consultation.
In the meantime, the Government should make it clear that while some police forces may face challenges in securing accreditation of their forensic laboratories to the industry’s standards by the deadlines set by the Forensic Services Regulator, they must do so. Statutory quality enforcement powers for the Regulator are essential, to ensure that she has sufficient levers to enforce compliance with quality standards by all forensics service providers. The nearly three years that have elapsed since the 2013 consultation on such powers for the Government finally to decide to go ahead, and only for it now to initiate a further internal consultation, and still without an identified legislative vehicle, inevitably leaves us with serious doubts about the Government’s commitment to push ahead with this. The Government must before the end of the current 2016–17 Session bring forward the legislation necessary to give the Forensics Regulator the statutory powers needed to ensure accreditation and quality standards compliance.
There remains a pressing requirement for more forensics research, including into how well the science contributes to the criminal justice system. There is no mechanism for setting national forensic research priorities, and efforts to share data on identified research requirements, and on who is undertaking what research, are inadequate. The Home Office should press for a greater priority—and share of funding—to be given to forensics research. Any savings achieved from implementing the Forensics Strategy should not be wholly subsumed in general police budgets, but instead a significant proportion ring-fenced and used specifically to fund forensic science research needs.
© Parliamentary copyright 2015
16 September 2016