Quality Matters is the FCN’s fortnightly publication dedicated to a Policing audience and was originally created to support organisations on their journey to achieving ISO/IEC 17020 accreditation for Crime Scene Investigation. 

Our first edition was published way back in March 2021. 

Our aim was to share with the CSI community information provided to the FCN by the CSIs themselves of their experiences of UKAS pre-assessments, initial assessments and details of issues raised during visits, along with challenges they had faced. 

Our editions have been well received and when we have been out and about visiting organisations, delivering our CSI Accreditation Support Team Service (now Compliance Support Team Service) we have been overwhelmed by the positive comments we have had about Quality Matters. Many organisations have told us they wait in anticipation for the next edition. 

We found Quality Matters was being used by many different forensic teams, not just CSI, and we have been told Quality Matters has been invaluable for organisations preparing for accreditation visits, writing, or updating procedures, planning validation, and informing their teams about national issues relating to accreditation. That has spurred us on to continue publishing Quality matters, and while sometimes it has been a challenge to provide content, the team have always been able to find and deliver valuable information. 

What started as a publication for CSI has changed into a publication to support all our forensic colleagues. 

It has been a real team effort and we have now published our 100th edition with a new look debuting in this milestone issue. We hope you like it. We intend to continue producing issues covering a variety of topics from all areas of forensics along with information about courses, events, scientific publications, and the work the FCN is doing to support Forensic Services. As they have proved useful in the past, we will also produce dedicated issues from time to time focussing on specific areas like SARC accreditation or changes in Digital, Fingerprints or FEL activities. 

Please continue to share information with us so we can continue to provide you with Quality Matters. 

If you work in Policing and do not receive Quality Matters and would like to subscribe, please contact FCN Quality.

If you work in policing and want to subscribe, contact FCN Quality.