Conclusions and recommendations
Procurement in a declining market
1.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. (Paragraph 26)
2.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. 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’ offers scope for police forces to share more services, including potentially forensics services, which might allow more sharing of evidence between forces. (Paragraph 27)
3.As we recommend [below], 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’. (Paragraph 28)
Forensic science research
4.Despite a raft of improvements following the 2011 Silverman review, there remains a pressing requirement for more forensics research, including into how well the science contributes to the criminal justice system. Without the benefit of the results of such research, we cannot know whether the low proportion of forensic cases reaching court is the result of defendants not wishing to contest the forensics or represents a misdirected allocation of resources. The Government should without delay commission the research promised by the minister on the reasons for the low proportion of forensic cases reaching court. (Paragraph 40)
5.There is no mechanism for setting national forensic research priorities. Efforts to share data on identified research requirements, and on who is undertaking what research, are inadequate. At the same time, the private sector remains insufficiently incentivised to invest in forensics research. The Home Office, in its input to the newly created UK Research & Innovation, should press for a greater priority—and share of funding—to be given to forensics research. The Government should also work with the Forensic Science Special Interest Group to relaunch its forensic research and innovation database, to help coordinate the work of public and private forensic scientists and businesses. (Paragraph 41)
6.Any savings achieved from implementing the Forensics Strategy should not wholly be subsumed in general police budgets, but instead a significant proportion (we recommend at least half) explicitly ring-fenced and used specifically to fund the forensic science research needs identified by the Home Office and Ministry of Justice. (Paragraph 44)
Standards and accreditation
7.Accreditation of all forensic laboratories and scientists to the industry’s standards is essential, including police in-house services. We welcome the important work being done by the Regulator in negotiating accreditation deadlines and in developing further standards, and by the Royal Society and others in developing ‘primers’ to assist courts in dealing with forensic evidence effectively. Such standard-setting and accreditation should also help dispel any concerns about ‘cognitive bias’ in the police commissioning and undertaking forensic examinations. The Government must be clear that, while some police forces may face particular challenges in securing accreditation, there must be no failure to meet the Regulator’s deadlines. (Paragraph 55)
8.Statutory powers for the Regulator are essential, to ensure that she has sufficient levers to ensure compliance with quality standards by all forensics service providers. We are left with serious doubts about the Government’s commitment to deliver this, however, because nearly three years have been allowed to elapse since the 2013 consultation on such powers, only for it now to initiate a further internal consultation, and because there is still no identified legislative vehicle. The Government must without further delay, and certainly 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 standards compliance. (Paragraph 63)
The strategy
9.We conclude that any ‘national approach’ will depend on what the police service, rather than the Government, wish to bring about. (Paragraph 65)
10.The vague language in the Strategy on procurement, with its sparse detail on how locally-negotiated non-standard contracts will deliver the intended ‘more consistent national approach’, the lack of detail on the possibility of a joint biometrics and forensics service without the benefit of a published Biometrics Strategy and incomplete governance details, all raise the question of whether the Forensics Strategy is a strategy at all. The impression instead is that it is a plan to produce a Strategy in due course. (Paragraph 75)
11.The Strategy also has an air of incompleteness because ‘scoping work’ on key areas is still underway, and there has been an evident failure to consult widely on the Strategy before its publication, which in turn has left many stakeholders unclear about its status and purpose. (Paragraph 78)
12.The long delay in producing the Forensic Strategy is unfortunate. But we would rather have seen further delay if that would have allowed the Government to complete essential foundation work, and to formulate a more coherent vision for forensic services and the route-map to deliver it that are missing from the Government’s document. The Government should acknowledge that the Forensics Strategy is an incomplete document which leaves too many issues and possible ways forward 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 service ‘scoping work’, to present a revised ‘draft Forensic Strategy’ for a full public consultation. Once that is done, we would hope to see a Strategy that justifies such a description. (Paragraph 82)
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16 September 2016