Written evidence submitted by the Home Office (FST0031)

Thank you for the opportunity to provide evidence to your inquiry on 12 April. I am writing on behalf of the Home Office; my colleague Mary Calam has now left the civil service. 

You asked that I write in relation to the innovation landscape for forensic science to set out what is available now. Academia and commercial forensic providers, including the growing digital forensic industry, already undertake a significant amount of research and development.

The Leverhulme Trust has recently announced funding of £10 million over 10 years for the Leverhulme Centre for Forensic Science at the University of Dundee. The centre will help address existing research gaps and encourage work with industry.

Some police forces have also set up effective partnership arrangements with academia, for example, Hampshire’s forensic department partnering with Portsmouth University, and the Metropolitan Police Service’s strategic alliance with Kings College London.

The Home Office is also directly funding innovation in a number of areas:

• The Office for Security and Counter Terrorism funded a Small Business Research Initiative call in 2015 on digital forensics. The Home Office took forward 11 proposals, each of which has a “project champion” from either CAST or law enforcement/agencies. We invested over £380,000 in Phase 1, and anticipate further funding for those that enter Phase 2 later this year.
• The Home Office has supported the development of forensic capability within forces with £6.6 million in grants via the Police Innovation Fund (PIF) since 2014, for example through funding RapidDNA pilots in Lancashire and Nottinghamshire. Rapid DNA will allow the sample to be processed using portable equipment thereby reducing processing time from 4-5 days to around two hours, speeding up detection and arrest, potentially preventing further offences.
• West Yorkshire Police also received funding from the PIF for a trial of new fingerprint technology which will enhance the police’s ability to get a match from smudged and partial prints and to evidence the blood group, gender, as well as the presence of medication or drug use from the person who left them

CAST provide expert advice, innovation and support to policy makers and frontline partners. They are represented at a number of National Police Chiefs’ Council boards.  CAST has supported policing in areas including:

• Rapid DNA: as part of the PIF funded project they have mapped out the business benefits and identified the infrastructure needed to exploit this type of technology, including satisfying the courts of its validity.
• Footwear: they have worked with the Metropolitan Police on the digital capture and auto encoding of footwear impressions. The pilot has reported that this has reduced the average footwear process time from 6 days down to 3-4 minutes. This enables the coding, screening and searching of the National Footwear Database to take place whilst a person remains in custody, rather than releasing them to wait for forensic results.
• Fingerprints: they published the Fingerprint Visualisation Manual, which provides guidance on techniques and processes for the recovery and enhancement of fingermarks, and is widely regarded as world-leading guidance by practitioners. CAST are currently undertaking research into validation of the chemical components used in fingerprint development, as well as researching the most effective way of recovering fingerprints from polymer banknotes and firearm cartridges.
• DNA Horizon Scanning: CAST are working on a commission from the National DNA Database Strategy Board to identify the future trends and emerging uses of DNA information e.g. the prediction of physical characteristics from a DNA profile (phenotyping).

The European research programme, Horizon 2020 Secure Societies, is worth €1.7Bn over 7 years and often includes forensics related research topics.  As well as lobbying the European Commission to include forensics topics in the research programme, the Home Office has promoted the research programme to police forces and agencies, as well as UK industry and academia. Four UK organisations – including the Centre for Applied Science and Technology (CAST) – are involved in research proposals from the 2014/15 Work Programme and between them they will receive €1.6m of European funding.

There are many ongoing projects designed to increase efficiency and effectiveness of forensics, many looking to move processes closer to the crime scene. For example the DNA Database has been upgraded to include a more sensitive form of DNA profiling (DNA 17) and now includes a Central Elimination Database to detect inadvertent contamination. Speeding up the identification of a criminal through Rapid DNA, automatic transmission and matching of a fingerprint or through faster results from the footwear database significantly increase the chance of catching and prosecuting a criminal.

You also asked for further information regarding the steps we are taking to foster growth in this area; it is worth noting some developments that will support innovation in the future.

Breakthroughs in forensic science can come from research in basic science; however these have often been achieved without forensics in mind. It can therefore be difficult to predict where additional investment might yield dividends in forensics.

Research Councils have acknowledged that easier access to funding for forensic science related research is required. They have engaged with academic institutions to raise the profile of opportunities; however, many police forces who have worked alongside academic partners to submit bids for funding through this process have been unsuccessful. The Government Office for Science is currently working with all Government departments in response to the Nurse Review of Research Councils. One of the Review’s recommendations involves developing statements of research requirements to inform Research Councils funding priorities. The Home Office will contribute a section on forensic science which we hope will increase the amount of funding to forensic-related research.

As set out in the Forensic Science Strategy, the breadth of forensic science disciplines creates a complex landscape in which collaboration between organisations is vital. The NPCC Science and Innovation Board coordinates research requirements for forensics on behalf of policing, working with a number of partners including the forensic regulator and academia to define requirements and help provide a route into policing. The group are working to coordinate funding streams, as well as update guidance and requirements in relation to ‘live time’ forensics.

It is equally important that police forces make the most of new technology and opportunities to utilise that technology effectively. Digital forensics as a discipline provides specific research and development challenges, due to the constantly evolving technology. Many police forces carry out operationally focused research in response to a specific need, for example, to understand how to access a particular device or deal with a specific encryption. The Strategy emphasises that these capabilities need to be shared across law enforcement.

Police Transformation Fund

In the Spending Review the Chancellor announced the creation of a Police Transformation Fund (PTF) which will support the police to transform themselves to meet future demands and build the capabilities needed to respond to changing crimes and threats.  

The fund will help policing to develop so that it has a more flexible and representative workforce with the right skills and be digitally enabled, more accessible and transparent to the public and be able to share digital information across the Criminal Justice System.

Joint Forensic and Biometric Service

The Forensic Science Strategy includes a commitment for a review by police forces of the case for moving current fragmented provisions into a Joint Forensic and Biometric Service to achieve economies of scale, increased capability and resilience.

A programme of work will build on the opportunities offered by the Home Office Biometrics Programme (HOB) to ensure that those forensic and biometric capabilities currently delivered in-house are organised most effectively and shared across policing, where appropriate. A study has been commissioned of how technological advances in forensics at the frontline could best be exploited with a report due back to the Home Office in the next few weeks.  This will focus in particular on ensuring that lessons have been learned from field trials of technology like Rapid DNA and identity technologies and approaches that would benefit from a wider, national roll out. 

Chiefs and PCCs will want to consider the case for a JFBS in the round.  One likely potential benefit will be an improved ability to innovate, to send signals to suppliers about priorities for innovation, and an enhanced ability both to trial new approaches and ensure these are rolled out widely over a service supporting a large area of law enforcement. 

I hope this addresses the points the committee made.  I would, of course, be happy to provide further clarification or detail. 

30 June 2016