Forensic Science Strategy Contents

2Procurement in a declining market

A changing workload

12.Forensic science is the application of science for the purposes of the law. It encompasses a broad range of disciplines, including the analysis of firearms, drugs, clothes and human tissues, as well as newer disciplines such as the analysis of computer hard drives and phones and other ‘digital forensics’ disciplines.28

13.The Forensic Strategy described changing forensic workload patterns:

Police Recorded Crime shows that traditional volume crime (e.g. burglary and vehicle theft) has declined, while crime with a digital element (e.g. child sexual abuse and indecent imagery offences) has increased. This corresponds to a decline in the demand for traditional forensic science, such as DNA and fingerprints, and an increase in demand for digital forensics. Sexual offences recorded by the police have also risen, with increased reporting of historic cases. Historic cases often have minimal forensic requirements due to the lack of remaining physical evidence.29

The unprecedented amount of digital information being generated has led to an increase in demand for digital forensics, whether the crime itself is digital or not [ … .] The increase in the volume of potential digital forensic material, and the limited capacity within [police] forces to process these, has resulted in significant backlogs in a number of forces.30

The Strategy noted that the overall decline in the volume of forensic examinations has also seen a fall in expenditure:

Spending on forensics was broadly stable up to 2009–10 after which estimated police spending fell 18% to 2015–16.31

The reduction in spend can be attributed to a range of factors including that the number of acquisitive crimes, in which forensics have traditionally been used, is falling. The closure of the [Forensic Science Service] resulted in greater competition and lower prices. Police forces have adopted a more targeted approach to forensics submissions, moving away from a blanket approach.32

14.This picture of falling workloads and falling expenditure was one also found by our predecessor Committee’s 2011 inquiry. It noted a 2010 consultants’ review for the National Policing Improvement Agency which had projected a decline in the forensics market from £170m in 2009 to £110m in 2015.33 The Government highlighted in 2011 that “the police have reduced their forensics spend by realising efficiencies such as bringing certain processes in-house to be more cost-effective and better controlling submissions to reduce the cost of unviable samples being sent [ … ] [and] the introduction of competition into the market has driven down the cost of forensics services”.34

15.Our predecessor Committee nevertheless found in 2011 “a widespread view that the forensics market was fragile”.35 The Committee was concerned about an increased police in-sourcing of forensic science which might distort the market “by the police customer increasingly becoming the competitor”.36 In their 2013 follow-up report they were still worried that “the continuing uncertainty over the current and future size of the market risks undermining the willingness and capacity of private forensic providers to operate and invest in that market”.37

Procurement approaches

16.Our predecessor Committee also had concerns about the procurement systems to deal with that reducing market. They noted in 2013 that some were worried about the ‘National Forensic Framework: Next Generation’ (NFFNG) agreement, encompassing laboratory services across 13 disciplines with nine commercial suppliers,38 producing a ‘commoditisation’ of forensic services which ignored the complexities of forensic interpretation and restricted the scope for tailoring tests to the needs of individual cases. Some (though not the police) had felt that this commoditisation could result in a fragmentation of services, where several providers could analyse different pieces of evidence within the same criminal case, with no one forensic expert having an overview of the entire case.39 The Committee warned police forces to be “cognisant of the important warnings given by eminent scientists, such as Dr Tully [subsequently the Forensic Sciences Regulator], about the dangers of fragmentation in procurement”. She had worried that there would “inevitably be cases where people are not being convicted because the forensic evidence has not been done to a sufficiently high standard or with the extra context [ … ] With the decreasing size of the market, and the continuing cuts and instability, it is more likely to happen.”40 The Government told our predecessor Committee in 2013 that:

The NFFNG does not, in itself, lead to fragmentation as sole suppliers can be (and are) used on any one case. Cases do not need to be split or fragmented between suppliers. In fact it would be very unusual for individual cases (especially major cases) to be split across suppliers under NFFNG. [ … ] The NFFNG does not lead to the ‘fragmentation of evidence’ as police forces can (and invariably do) keep the larger, more complex cases with a single supplier.41

17.The Forensic Science Strategy acknowledged the problems of fragmentation:

The majority of forensic services are purchased through the NFFNG and the previous framework. Under this arrangement, police forces order specific tests or procedures from an external [forensic service provider], rather than an overall managed service. Whilst this approach enables forces to exercise greater control over the investigation strategy, and their expenditure on forensic services, it can also create fragmentation of cases. Investigations will also often encompass services that police forces provide in-house such as pre-screening of exhibits or the provision of digital forensics analysis.42

Mark Pearce of LGC Forensics believed that fragmentation risks were now less evident because of such an approach:

Four or five years [ago], fragmentation from a provider’s point of view [ … ] was quite extreme and damaging to the quality of the work that could potentially be achieved. As a market, we have matured together in that respect, so most forces, maybe not all, would now make an attempt to send a whole case to one provider, certainly within a particular evidence type.43

18.When we put the risk of fragmentation of forensic services to Mike Penning, the then minister, he told us that “how a force puts together a [criminal] case against an individual is a matter for them [ … ] but I have not seen the evidence on [fragmentation].”44 In the meantime, the Forensic Science Regulator told us that she was examining a small number of rape cases to investigate the issue.45

19.The Strategy highlighted the potential advantages of a new ‘partnership’ approach to procurement:

[ … ] Forces [are] consider[ing] new approaches to their relationships with external suppliers in order to consider the end-to-end oversight of the supply chain.46

Police forces are considering a new approach which could enable a single forensic deployment to cover all requirements; from traditional evidence recovery to digital triage and basic crime reporting. To deliver this, the crime scene investigator would need the skills and technical capabilities to allow forensic information to be collected and processed at scene and directed to the most appropriate database or end-user; be it investigator, prosecutor or specialist.47

A partnership approach could include working with a specific [forensic service providers] for the purposes of research and development or contracting for forensic services as part of a wider partnership contract for management of support functions.48

20.Mark Pearce highlighted the North-East region partnership where “the expert who is allocated a particular case can take a whole-case view and give an opinion based on all the facts”.49 He wanted to see “a mindset change of inclusive behaviours” based on a partnership procurement model.50 He told us:

We’ve got to do this differently. We’ve got to talk more. We’ve got to work over a longer period of time. We will invest in this sector, but we will only do so if we are doing it in partnership with joint business cases with mutual return and benefit. The [procurement] framework does not provide that. It is a short-term, commodity-based procurement infrastructure vehicle that has had its day. [ … ] I do not think what will replace it will be a standard way of procuring. Police forces in each region, or separately, will choose something that suits their policing needs, and that may be different in London from the North-east or the South-west.51

21.The Metropolitan Police is already planning a move towards such a partnership approach, based on seven-year contracts with a range of forensic providers, with an optional three-year extension.52 Tom Nelson of the Scottish Police Authority and representing the Association of Forensic Science Providers, believed that “it is so important to have longevity of the contract, because that would allow providers to invest in that particular area. It will also allow us to benefit from the research and the innovation that they actually bring”.53 Some smaller companies were concerned, however, that a partnership approach could make them sub-contractors to larger companies. ROAR Forensics, for example, believed that it would create “distinct two-tier levels of [forensic service provider]” between large providers and those with “specific or focused discipline strengths”.54

22.With the NFFNG agreement expiring at the end of July 2016,55 the Strategy appears to have left uncertainty about the extent of such partnership models and any other procurement methods in the future. Gary Pugh of LGC Forensics saw “a lack of clarity on what the national approach actually means for the private sector in the Strategy as it stands”. He told us:

There is a leap of faith for the private sector that the good work and partnership approach that we have tried to foster will continue and will play a prominent part in the delivery of the Strategy.56

Dr Gillian Tully, the Forensic Science Regulator, in a similar vein, told us:

Looking at the Strategy, it does not seem, from my reading of it, that it provides stability or certainty for forensic science providers going forward.57

23.Compounding that uncertainty, the Strategy also provided little insight into the Government’s thinking on how dispensing with centrally provided NFFNG procurement regime could allow a “national approach”. The Strategy noted that “police forces have [ … ] collectively commissioned scoping work on how best to deliver a more consistent national approach”.58

Police forces will have a national approach to forensic science delivery that will provide a more strategic relationship with the forensic supply chain through ongoing oversight of the health of the supply chain [ … ] and a review by police forces of the case for moving the current fragmented arrangements to a nationally organised system.59

But, as the Home Office informed us in September 2016, the ‘scoping work’ noted in the Forensic Science Strategy is “part of” the police’s Specialist Capability Review (paragraph 76) which was proceeding under “the principle that there are some capabilities that should be delivered at the multi-force or regional level to drive further efficiency”.60 The Home Office explained that:

From this month onwards, forces or police regions (collaborations) will procure their own services by running tenders for themselves. To ensure that this is in keeping with the forensic strategy’s overall aim for a national approach, oversight of these commercial activities will be provided by the [police] Forensic Marketplace Strategy Board.61

24.The Home Office calculated that since 2008 the NFFNG and its predecessor system had secured a “40% reduction in price and 50% reduction in turnaround times”, but that “probably many of the benefits you are going to get—or squeeze—out of this have been achieved, and many [police] forces are looking at a different approach”.62 The decision to not replace the NFFNG appears also, however, to have reflected a Government reluctance to impose systems from the centre. Mike Penning explained that the Strategy did not represent a move to a common national procurement arrangement, which would be “completely against Government policy”.63 He wanted police forces “to develop their own strategies on procurement”.64

25.The Strategy noted that any forensic services procured by police forces through the NFFNG agreement were required to be accredited to the ISO 17025 standard,65 but gave no information on the accreditation requirements for private sector providers once that framework lapsed in July. In September the Home Office informed us that accreditation “will continue to be a requirement in future for all out-sourced services” including for digital forensics which were outside the NFFNG system.66 (We discuss accreditation for in-house police forensic services in Chapter 4.)

26.With the ‘National Forensic Framework: Next Generation’ system not being replaced after it lapsed in July 2016, the Government’s Forensics Strategy document was unclear about the procurement regime that will follow it. It also failed to explain that individual forces would now be undertaking their own procurements, or how this decentralised arrangement would square with the Strategy’s desire for a “more consistent national approach”, or how new ‘oversight’ systems would operate.

27.Where the police continue to provide forensic services in-house, they will not be required (unlike the private sector) to meet accredited quality standards until compelled to do so by the Regulator’s deadlines falling due over the next few years (paragraph 46). In the meantime, private sector providers remain unsure, despite the Strategy’s publication, about the intended extent and nature of their involvement in the overall forensics market. There remains a risk of fragmented forensic examinations, where tests on a case are sent to more than one forensics provider, though a risk that has reduced as some police forces have followed a partnership route. The ongoing police ‘Specialist Capability Review’ (paragraph 23, 76) offers scope for police forces to share more services, including potentially forensics services, which might allow more sharing of evidence between forces.

28.As we recommend in Chapter 5, the Government must produce a revised and more complete Strategy on the back of a consultation addressing the results of currently ongoing work by the police. When it does so, the Government should set out a clearer way forward for forensics procurement, which resolves the potential inconsistency of police forces increasingly organising their own procurements within a ‘consistent national approach’.

28 Science and Technology Committee, The Forensic Science Service, Seventh Report, Session 2010–12, HC 855

29 Forensic Science Strategy, Cm 9217, para 20

30 ibid, paras 22, 23

31 ibid, para 26

32 ibid, para 27

33 Science and Technology Committee, The Forensic Science Service, Seventh Report, Session 2010–12, HC 855

34 Home Office, Government response to S&T Committee: Forensic Science Service, Cm 8215 (October 2011)

35 Science and Technology Committee, The Forensic Science Service, Seventh Report, Session 2010–12, HC 855

36 Ibid.

37 Science and Technology Committee, Forensic science, Second Report, Session 2013–14, HC 610

38 Forensic Science Strategy, Cm 9217, para 48

39 Science and Technology Committee, The Forensic Science Service, Seventh Report, Session 2010–12, HC 855