Police chiefs keen to share forensic services with other agencies to boost income

Scottish police chiefs are looking to open up their forensic services to other agencies from across the UK and even Europe in a bid to secure much-needed income.

Andrew Flanagan, chair of the Scottish Police Authority, which is responsible for providing forensic services to Police Scotland, has tasked officials with drawing up plans to generate income from forensics.

It came as the civilian oversight body confirmed a forecast overspend on their forensic services budget of £1.5m for the 2015-16 financial year.

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Meanwhile, Police Scotland’s overall budget overspend is expected to come in at almost £8.4m for the last financial year. Discussions will now take place with Scottish Government officials over the next few weeks, the likely outcome being that either the overspend will be absorbed in this year’s budget or that government will cover it.

Senior SPA officials have hailed the £75m Scottish Crime Campus at Gartcosh, which opened in 2014, as one of the leading DNA facilities in Europe. A £6m DNA profiling facility, funded via investment from the Scottish Government, has been held up as vital in solving cold cases.

Legislation allows the SPA to charge for the provision of its services, presenting an opportunity to mitigate any funding pressures. It’s understood the civilian oversight body has done so on an ad-hoc basis over the last three years but is now keen to formalise the offering. 

The forensics budget has been set at £26.7m for the next 12 months, down £600,000 on the net spend in 2015-16. Asked about the opportunity to boost funding with income from forensics, SPA chief executive John Foley told board members that he had discussed the matter with director of forensics Tom Nelson and that work was carried out last autumn on the possibility. 

“The budget, as it sits at the moment, doesn't take any provision in there for generating any additional income,” he added.

“But clearly, as we move into next year, that is an area that we will be looking to see how we can leverage the investment in the assets that we have made over recent years because we do have technology which is absolutely at the forefront of forensic science in the UK.

“I believe, personally, that there is opportunity within the service to deliver some income.”

In December, Scottish Labour said that thousands of drug cases remained unsolved due to cuts in forensic service, claims that the ​Scottish Government branded "misleading".

The Authority yesterday set a budget for policing over the next 12 months following the Scottish Government’s commitment to ‘real terms protection’ over the lifetime of the next parliament.

Revenue funding is set to increase by £17.6m, though an £11.9m cut to capital funding combined with the replacement of a pot of money set aside to meet the initial costs of the creation of the single service means that total funding available will be down £9.2m.

Only “exceptional capital spend” will be approved between now and the end of June, an SPA spokeswoman confirmed, until there is “greater clarity on how assumptions and plans for revenue spending are delivering in practice against the budget”.      

Foley said: “It is going to be difficult. I am not saying that we absolutely have the solution, but we’re confident of getting to that position [of a balanced budget].

“But members need to be aware that a great deal of work will need to be undertaken as we progress through the year and we will absolutely monitor the position so that members have got a regular update on where we are with progress to achievement.”

Police Scotland chief constable Phil Gormley said: “The only way in which we are going to deliver against this very challenging set of proposals is to move early, to move effectively and to move against the big ticket items as quickly we can.”