CCL CEO Noel McMenamin offers his views on the major policing reforms announced last year and their potential to address some of the long-standing challenges around digital forensics faced by both law enforcement agencies and DF providers.
Noel McMenamin writes:
Last autumn Home Secretary Yvette Cooper set out her plans to deliver major policing reforms, including:
As one of the UK’s major providers of digital forensics services to law enforcement, the latter reform naturally caught our eye. It is too early to offer hard and fast commentary but an opinion on the mission – the aims, challenges and concerns – feels appropriate as engagement has already started and there’s a keen appetite for sharing learnings and best practice.
In broad terms, CCL welcomes the establishment of the National Centre of Policing (NCoP) and its ambitious goals of fostering greater standardisation, innovation, and collaboration within policing and forensics. Any initiative that delivers better outcomes within the criminal justice system – more effective combating of crime, keeping pace with technology, faster results, better utilisation of resources – deserves our support.
That said, we come at this with a balance of optimism and caution. Centralisation has never been an automatic panacea. Many CCL personnel remember supporting the Forensic Science Service, which the UK Government closed back in 2010, citing monthly losses of up to £2m as justification. In the aftermath, regional forces built up their own digital forensic units, drawing on the private providers where needed in the management of their respective priorities and resource constraints. Can the NCoP effectively navigate these disparities to ensure improvements are universally felt? Can resource optimisation – getting the skilled provision in place where and when it’s needed – work at a practical level without the costs outstripping the savings?
Another concern is the duplication—or potential clash—of responsibilities. Standards for forensic science activities already exist under the Forensic Science Regulator (FSR) Act, yet compliance remains inconsistent across the board. If the NCoP intends to enhance standardisation, will it work in alignment with the FSR, or risk adding another layer of bureaucracy? The early signs are that the NCoP will help the FSR in enforcing compliance, rather than duplicating or diluting its role. But as the FSR has legislative powers already, it raises the question of why police forces have not shown a concerted effort to comply with the legal requirements. Perhaps we should question why enforcement hasn’t been stronger already? And whether there’s more to robust compliance than just expressing it as an aim?
There will undoubtedly be an element of ‘walk the walk as well as talk the talk’ to enter the debate. Two years ago, we wrote an editorial piece for Security & Policing about the findings and recommendations contained within the HMICFRS’s report on policing and digital forensics.
The report offered some pithy quotes to summarise the challenges ahead:
‘’The service is now at a crossroads as to how it will adapt to the challenge digital forensics presents”
“In many forces a few specialists are trying to manage an overburdened system.”
“The cost of technology, developing skills and finding digital solutions can’t be for policing to address alone.”
At the time we urged everyone to come together around the report’s ninth recommendation: more public/private sector collaboration, which we saw as by far and away the best option then for driving the necessary improvements. We thought that suitable partnerships would help break through the insularity that (still) characterises the DF infrastructure:
Closer ties would give us our best shot at securing fundamental change. In the light of that editorial, you can perhaps understand why on the one hand, we are encouraged by the new government’s push, with specifics like the involvement of academia already noted; but on the other, we are concerned that actions will not follow words, or any action will not happen quickly enough. Because two years on, we could legitimately wheel out the same editorial for 2025.
As an organisation that has worked closely with law enforcement agencies, regulators and HM Government, and with our strong connections with the policing community, we do have a priceless opportunity. In this developmental phase for the NCoP, consultation across the industry is likely to take place and we would like to be part of that consultative process. We are able to see it from all sides, which is an invaluable perspective to have for translating a vision into practical improvements – improvements that are workable for all and benefit the justice system as a whole.
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