Plans unveilled to speed up forensic support for Scottish police
SPSA Forensic Services has today published proposals to improve the speed, consistency, and cost effectiveness of forensic analysis in Scotland.
In an options paper on Forensic Services modernisation published today by the Scottish Police Services Authority (SPSA), the organisation sets out how over the next five years it could maintain the 250,000 cases completed each year for police forces and fiscals, speed up key turnaround times for DNA, fingerprint, and drug tests in volume crimes, while reducing annual costs by up to £3.5 million.
SPSA intends to maintain local Scene Examination services co-located with all eight Forces as at present, up-skilling those officers over time to provide Forces with a wider range of skills to draw on at a local level - including blood pattern analysis and fire examinations.
The options under consideration for scientific laboratory support include:
- driving forward a programme of change and efficiency within the existing four laboratories in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen, with the potential to realise annual savings of £1.75 million by 2015;
- invest in a new case management IT solution to step up the efficiencies within the existing four laboratory structure with, with the potential to realise annual savings of £2 million by 2015;
- moving to a new structure where four smaller ‘satellite laboratories' staffed by scientists would be maintained in the cities, supported by two high-volume processing units in Glasgow (later Gartcosh) and Dundee, with the potential to realise annual savings of around £2.8 million by 2015;
- moving to a new structure where all scientific support in Scotland is delivered from two laboratories in Glasgow (later Gartcosh) and Dundee, with the potential to realise annual savings of around £3.5 million by 2015.
The options, which have been published today for discussion and debate with customers, staff and stakeholders, follow a year-long analysis of how Scotland‘s forensics services could better meet the national needs of Scotland‘s police forces and fiscals.
That analysis found that Forces are broadly satisfied with the support they receive in serious and complex crimes like murders. However, there is concern among customers that the focus given to serious crimes can lead to inconsistency and delay in providing support to day-to-day investigations in volume crimes like housebreaking.
The analysis has also identified wide variations in practice, procedure and cost of delivering services from SPSA's four laboratories.
Launching a six week period of engagement with customers to gauge opinion on the options, SPSA Director of Forensic Services Tom Nelson said:
"We were established to provide Scotland's eight Forces, SCDEA and the fiscal service with a truly national forensic support service that consistently meets their needs. Since we were formed we have made some important progress - not least reducing the backlog of cases inherited from over 8,000 to 3,400 today.
"Over the past year or more we have engaged as never before with those we serve in the Forces and fiscals. We have listened and we have helped them to define what they want from a forensic service. Rightly, they want and expect a lot from us - because forensic science is the key to unlocking many investigations which in turn can save thousands of hours of expensive police time.
"At the heart of what they want is consistency. They want us not just to have the expertise for the serious cases like murder, but to have the resilience and consistency to provide them with fast results in day-to-day crime like robbery and housebreaking. In short, they want a forensic service that supports the many crimes, not just the few.
"We have made huge strides in agreeing with them what an appropriate level of service looks like - not just how many cases they need our help in, but also how quickly they should expect results. The task now is how best to organise ourselves within Forensic Services to be able to deliver what they, our customers, want from us.
"We must iron out the inconsistency of approach in our practice and procedures. That simply cannot continue given the financial challenges we will all be facing over the next five years. Every pound counts.
"The options we have set out today are about consolidating and optimising what we do for policing - but they do herald change for us as an organisation. Change in practice. Change in procedure. Change too in terms of people and places.
"What we seek to achieve over the coming weeks is a consensus around which of these options strike the right balance between what the customers are looking for, and what generates the best efficiency for the public purse. We hope that we can have a constructive debate around this, and we are committed to engaging with everyone who has a stake. Together we want to ensure that within the resources available to us, forensic science makes the best possible contribution to delivering safer communities in Scotland."
A copy of the Forensic Modernisation Options Paper can be dowloaded by clicking on the link below: