Forensic services in Scotland have had an ignominious few years and are at risk under the proposed austerity measures. Labour Justice spokesman Richard Baker says their future needs secured in the interest of justice.

The prospect of losing two of Scotland’s four forensic labs has focused minds in Parliament on what impact this could have on the ability of police forces to solve crimes and for prosecutors to pursue cases. Labour brought forward a debate in the Scottish parliament to state opposition to the proposals to close the laboratories in Aberdeen and Edinburgh and transfer the vast majority of forensic science services to the new facility at Dundee and the one being developed at Gartcosh.

An earlier “consultation” in 2008 had seen the SPSA publish a document putting forward a case to close the laboratory in Aberdeen. It was widely agreed that this was a botched process, with no meaningful consultation with staff, police and prosecutors in the areas concerned.

After a period of turmoil at the SPSA, it was agreed by Kenny MacAskill that the process should begin afresh and the new Chair of the SPSA, Vic Emery, gave assurances that a new, genuine consultation process would begin and would look not just at the future of services in the north and north-east, but for the whole of Scotland.

But the modernising forensic services consultation document which was published at the end of that process has given rise to fears that not only the laboratory in Aberdeen will be closed or downgraded, but that the same fate faces the laboratory in Edinburgh. There are four options for developing the service in the document, and while two of them would maintain the laboratories, far more time in the document is spent arguing the case either for their closure or for them to be run down with very many of their current activities transferred out of them.

The fear is that this decision will impact severely on forensic services in these areas. Criminal defence solicitor Peter Lockhart. a member of the Law Society of Scotland’s criminal law committee, was quoted as saying “There’s already a backlog of reports being done. If resources become more severe, cases at the lower end may not go for forensic reports - that would be a matter of concern for the public. If they aren’t tested, the Crown would say ‘If we don’t have the evidence, we won’t continue with the case.’ He also expressed fears that there will be fewer cases sent to the labs for reports as the scientists will only have time to devote to the most serious cases. Substances can be tested at police station, but they then must be sent to forensic labs for more rigorous analysis that will stand up in a court of law. Additionally we already know that the further away a scene of crime is from a laboratory the longer it takes to get results. So the concern is that closing these laboratories would be damaging to local policing and would not serve our justice system, with cases delayed or evidence not provided in time.

Of course given the strictures on public finances which we face the need for reducing costs in the public sector has to be acknowledged. But supporters of the laboratories in Aberdeen and Edinburgh rightly argue that they can be maintained while reducing costs. Indeed, the SPSA’s own consultation document acknowledged that with the introduction of a new IT management solution and more standard procedures across the laboratories, savings could be maintained while maintaining all the laboratories, and this in a context where we already spend proportionately less on forensic services than in England.

And savings which the SPSA may speculate they could make by closing the laboratories would indeed produce costs elsewhere in the justice system, for our courts and police forces. Given that the proposals from Sheriff Principal Bowen to make the processes for Sheriff and Jury trials more efficient include as a key element speedier access to DNA evidence, the prospect of running down services at two of our forensic laboratories is counter-intuitive as it is likely to be counter-productive.

So the decision now resides with the cabinet secretary for Justice. Parliament voted to maintain the current services at all the laboratories for all the reasons I’ve outlined and more. It is crucial for our justice system that Kenny MacAskill comes to the same conclusion.