Police forensic leaders have been featured in an in-depth interview published on Police Oracle.

In the article NPCC's Forensic Lead, CC Nick Dean, and the FCN's managing director John Armstrong discuss a range of topics on forensic science in policing from the marketplace, skills and apprenticeships to digital forensics and quality compliance.

Key to current discussions on forensics is the National Centre of Policing, plans for which Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced in November. Forensics has been discussed as an example of national capability which could sit within the Centre.

In the interview, CC Dean said: 

"Coming to fruition in the thoughts around the National Centre for Policing, is how do we get those national capabilities more coordinated into one host organisation or one host coordination centre so that we can actually do things better not just within a portfolio, but across portfolios?

"I think the key to it now is where we have this opportunity on police reform, and a key part of police reform is forensic reform, that we can actually move it that final step."

Discussing the digital forensic apprenticeships which FCN developed with the community, John Armstrong says:

"There were some people that said it was impossible to put these apprenticeships in place from scratch in forensics in this way. It’s been achieved and it’s going to be rolled out more widely to other forensic activities – crime scene activities, so it’s just the start of forensic apprenticeships.

"Digital forensics in particular has a high turnover of staff for various reasons, one of which is losing staff to the private sector who may pay a little bit more than policing. If we can provide career progression and career structures in order to give people higher future prospects it is another string to our bow really."

Read the full article on Police Oracle.