UKAS Forensic Science Technical Advisory Committee (FSTAC) Minutes of 7 th Meeting: 20 th May 2014 UKAS offices, Feltham, Middlesex

Transcription

1 UKAS Forensic Science Technical Advisory Committee (FSTAC) Minutes of 7 th Meeting: 20 th May 2014 UKAS offices, Feltham, Middlesex Present: (JF) Jim Fraser (KJM) Katherine Monnery (IR) Ian Ronksley (CL-H) Chanda Lowther-Harris (JA) John Armstrong (IE) Ian Elkins (VM) Victoria Morton (SG) Siobhan Green (KF) Kirsty Faulkner (AR) Andrew Rennison (MVJ) Martyn Jones (PH) Peter Harper (PMe) Pete Merrill (PMu) Paula Mulroy In Attendance: (SM) Susie Millar Apologies: (TL) Terry Lowe Independent Chairman University of Strathclyde United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) Metropolitan Police Service Forensic Marketplace Management Team (Home Office) Crown Prosecution Service Scottish Police Authority (Forensic Services) Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) National DNA Delivery Unit (Home Office) Forensic Science Regulator UKAS Technical Assessor - Independent Orchid Cellmark Ltd - Association of Forensic Science Providers (AFSP) representative National Crime Agency (NCA) College of Policing United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) - Secretary Hampshire Police Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) representative 1. Welcomes and introductions JF welcomed everyone to the meeting. 2. Matters Arising The minutes from the 6 th meeting were agreed as an accurate record. It was also agreed that none of the content required redaction. JF suggested the language of the minutes is reviewed. Action 1 : JF to review the minutes and amend where necessary without changing the content. The actions from the previous meeting were reviewed. Action 1 has been completed. AR has confirmed that the requirements (Low Power Microscopy and a presumptive test for blood) for the search and recovery of body fluids will be included in the Forensic Science Regulators Codes of Practice and Conduct (CoPC) when it is republished. KJM also confirmed that all UKAS customers who do not currently meet this standard have been informed of the requirement. Action 2 has been completed. The Forensic Marketplace Management Team (FMMT) presentation from the 5 th meeting was distributed to the committee members. The redacted minutes from the 4 th meeting were sent to PH and KF. These were agreed and have been sent for publishing on the UKAS website. Action 3. KF confirmed that the request for the DNA Ops group to publish what UKAS will require from an organisation when accrediting Rapid DNA technology will be included on the agenda for the next strategy board meeting. It is expected that things will move quickly in this area. FSTAC (14) 07 Page 1 of 5

2 The increasing use of technologies outside of the laboratory environment was discussed. All agreed that this is a rapidly changing area that the committee will need to continue to consider. Other areas of accreditation already conduct work at site. Different standards can be explored for accrediting site work. 3. Forensic Science Regulator Update AR is currently working 8 hours a week as Forensic Science Regulator as he has taken up his position at the Criminal Case Review Commission. Progress is being made by the Home Office to recruit a new Forensic Science Regulator. A short list has been provided to the minister to consider. It is anticipated that the new regulator will be announced in June. Jeff Adams is advising the government on issues surrounding new designer drugs. UKAS, FSR and Alec Wood had a meeting to identify 3 year and 6 year milestones for the 2020 vision will be the end of the 6 year term for the new Forensic Science Regulator. The FSR has issued a contract to review standards for medical forensics. This is anticipated to be an area which will be picked up by the new regulator. AR is working on a proposed business plan for the new regulator. 4. Committee Member Updates VM: SPA have signed a tripartite agreement with Police Scotland and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscals Service on the provision of forensic services in Scotland. This agreement links the KPIs for the 3 organisations. SPA have started a project with Edinburgh University on the use of professional judgement in relation to scene examination. They hope to receive a grant for more work in this area. CL-H: MPS have been tasked with making major savings from 2016; it is not clear as yet what impact this will have on the forensic area. SP: PSNI is currently going through a review. They have been given a target of saving 1m EUR this year. It is expected that the majority of this saving will come through reducing staff. SP attended an ENFSI Fingerprint Meeting in Oslo in February. Quality was a strong part of the agenda and there is on going work on the good practice manual. PH: AFSP members are largely occupied with the MUP project which is currently in progress. KJM (UKAS Update): Sarah Wright promoted from 1 st May to Commercial Team Leader for AFB/CMM Liaison Team. UKAS are currently recruiting for a replacement. Two new Assessment Managers have been recruited and are staring next week and in July. They both have a forensic background. The next Forensic TA day is planned for 11 th June; this provides a good opportunity for the TA s to all get together. The day will include a presentation on drying cabinets, a refresher on desktop reviews, a presentation on calibration and measurement traceability and a discussion on Rapid DNA. There will also be various breakout sessions in the following areas, body fluids and DNA, toxicology and drugs, fingermarks and photography and databases. It is World Accreditation Day on 9 th June. There is a YouTube video produced by ILAC/IAF explaining accreditation, a link to this can be found on UKAS homepage. 23 police forces have gained accreditation. The next main phase for accreditation is for fingerprint enhancement to be accredited by end of Applications are now coming through for this. ILAC G19 is now in a final form and should go to Accreditation Bodies for voting (30 day ballot) soon. Two recently planned UKAS training courses have been cancelled due to lack of delegates; these were the ISO/IEC Forensic Laboratory Management Course and the new ISO/IEC 17020:2012 Scene of Crime. Two further dates have now been planned. FSTAC (14) 07 Page 2 of 5

3 It was discussed that the low bookings for the course was probably due to budgets. The course may be more successful if it can be delivered on a customer s site so more people can attend from one organisation. KJM clarified that as UKAS are unable to provide consultation there would need to be attendees from different organisations. AR suggested that course could be run regionally. It was agreed that the courses need to run now to achieve the aim of organisations gaining accreditation for Scene of Crime by Action 2 : KF to raise Scene of Crime as a potential threat with Alex at the next Performance and Monitoring group. UKAS is in the process of signing a confidentiality agreement with the Forensic Science Regulator and the Home Office Forensic Marketplace Management Team. This will allow the sharing of information between the three parties on progression with accreditation and quality incidents. A waiver has been signed by all providers on the framework to allow this to happen. This will particularly relate to extensions to scope in terms of time frames for tenders. The final agreement should be signed today. ISO/PC 272 committee held a meeting in Birmingham in February. The committee is developing a standard for the manufacture of Forensic Consumables. A revised draft has come back to the UK mirror group to review and identify any comments. There was also a vote on the status of that group changing from a Project Committee to a Technical Committee. The move to a Technical Committee will allow the committee to work on other forensic issues. CEN Committee is working on four strands of work the first relating to scene of crime. There has been a vote sent out to the mirror committees to see if the CEN Committee should merge with the ISO committee. The next meeting is in October. AR suggested that FSTAC consider if we want BSI to be represented there. IR: ILAC guidance document (ILAC P15:2014 Application of ISO/IEC 17020) is out for voting (30 day ballot). MVJ: Attended a working group looking at how the standards can be applied to small and medium sized companies. MVJ attends as an independent expert. It was discussed that for sole traders validation is often an issue. MVJ confirmed that many buy in their peer review. The issues that forces have with consumables was discussed, specifically the difficulty in getting certificates of conformity from suppliers. AR noted that he sent PAS377 to the police procurement team 3 years ago. However, currently no-one is certified to this Standard; and therefore it is currently a self-assessment against the standard. AR indicated that a solution is to coordinate this on a national scale. KF recommends it is raised at the Forensic Delivery Board next week. Action 3 : PMu to raise the use of PAS 377 at the next Forensic Delivery Board meeting It was discussed that the push to ensure all forces have a minimum standard of blood searching has been taken on reasonably well. UKAS will need to ensure the usage of the technique and on-going competency at future visits. PMe: NCA are still in transition. PMe asked if he can do a 15 minute presentation at the next meeting on the scope and structure of the sciences at NCA. All agreed that this would be interesting and useful. Action 4 : KJM to add to agenda for PMe to present. PMu: The target operating model has been developed. From the competency project a guidance document has been issued and is being used. The competence test which was driven by forces requirements has been successful and is now being released. Starting to see interesting results and trends. Now developing a Crime Scene Managers competency. It is currently a pilot project. This is a difficult due to the professional judgement used in this role. IE: Presentation later in the meeting covers the update. FSTAC (14) 07 Page 3 of 5

4 JA: The forensic marketplace is currently about 58m in value. Spend is currently declining but the rate of decline has slowed as there is more targeted forensic work. There is currently a toxicology capacity issue with suppliers not being able to meet contractual deadlines. A Biometrics and Forensics Strategy is being developed by the Home Office. This will look at all of Forensics and where we want to be in 5 years time. The new drug driving legislation is expected to go live in March This is an English legislation about levels of drugs in blood. There will be extensions to scope needed for those organisations who are on the framework which is currently 6. KJM confirmed that schedules will state clearly whether their accreditation covers this aspect specifically. KF: DNA 17 will be starting to load in July. Working hard on the CPS guidance to ensure all stakeholders understand the requirements. The IT system and process for force eliminating database will take longer because of police regulations and consideration of legacy data. The Biometrics Commissioner is looking in to how they can gain assurance of the implementation of the Protection of Freedoms Act. The good practice manual should be getting signed off by forces later this month. The strategy board will be talking about Para DNA and Rapid DNA in June. 5. CoPC Pilot - Update The assessment phase was completed in September All improvement actions have now been cleared and LGC Limited and Orchid Cellmark Limited have both been granted accreditation. Therefore UKAS can now accept extensions to scope for CoPC. KJM asked if UKAS should run a further pilot for police forces specifically. AR advice is there should be a pilot which would be taken forward through Alec Woods group. The grant was against version 1 of CoPC, version 2 will be out imminently. The grant of accreditation related only to the body of the Codes and not any appendices. If an appendix is issued that includes requirements a review will need to be undertaken as to how to take this forward.. AR expressed huge congratulations to those involved. 6. Casework Review Pilot The deadline for applications was extended by one month because no applications had been received by the original date. Only one application has been received despite the extended deadline. IR explained that an internal decision needs to be made on whether UKAS progress this pilot at this time or whether to defer because of other competing priorities (i.e. any piloting now is likely to impact on other areas) and little benefit can be gained through a pilot with only one organisation. It was discussed how the lack of interest indicates the pressures and costs on organisations as well as the visibility of the proposed pilot to relevant organisations not represented in this forum. KF asked how we mitigate the risk of a lack of accreditation in this, and other areas, when encouraging the expansion of accreditation. KJM said it was marketed on the UKAS website and discussed at various groups. Costs were discussed and IR indicated that development costs would be expected to be borne by the applicant(s)unless the costs were met by an external sponsor (e.g. next regulator might be able to sponsor and thus reduce costs). The discussion culminated in acceptance of the UKAS proposal that the proposed pilot be deferred until a later date whilst recognising that accreditation for casework review may become a statutory requirement in the future. 7. Crown Prosecution Service IE gave a presentation on his work at CPS. The presentation included the Core Foundation Principles that inform the use of forensic science in the CJS and the key requirements for FSP s. There was also some consideration of how new science would be handled. 8. UKAS Roadmap for 2020 Vision UKAS have produced a roadmap for the 2020 vision which looks at how UKAS are going to move forward with the key areas that will need to be accredited by The committee were asked to consider if UKAS have captured the right areas and timescales and whether the priorities are correct. The driver for this is the FSR Statement of Requirements in the CoPC and the timescales given. Some other areas which have been discussed and requested have also been added. The roadmap also goes in to more detail of what UKAS need FSTAC (14) 07 Page 4 of 5

5 to do and when to be ready for each area. The example of fingerprint comparison was given. UKAS plans to group applicants and stagger when they go through each stage in order to manage resource. The roadmap identifies that to grant everyone by Dec 17 for fingerprint comparison UKAS need to start identifying Technical Assessors in March 2014 (this has already begun). Based on this AR now knows he can set a deadline for Dec 17. The roadmap shows the amount of planning that is needed. KJM reminded that the roadmap doesn t include business as usual for forensic work at UKAS which has to be delivered. Areas that need to be added to the road map were discussed. JF commented that some of these areas will be minimal in a few years time. There is a need to look to the future. JF suggested that a descriptive map which included technology and law changes and could be passed around would be useful. AR stated that providing the map gives others the opportunity to collaborate with each other and therefore be more efficient. KJM emphasised that whenever there are discussions about something needing to be accredited UKAS need to be informed quickly so they can see if it is possible. IR expressed the need to share the roadmap with CAST. It was emphasised that UKAS will require a pool of Technical Assessors to achieve the 2020 vision and that there was a responsibility from all involved to aid this process.. AR noted that UKAS could do more in selling the benefits of becoming and providing Technical Assessors. Action 5: KJM to add to the roadmap: Drugs, Video analysis, Fire investigation, Rapid DNA. Also to add more description to each area so that the roadmap can be circulated. 9. Schedules/Opts & Ints Update KJM presented on the UKAS project to standardise the schedules for all FSPs. UKAS have developed a master standardised schedule of wording for Forensic Science activities. A by-product of this has been the review of the use of Opinions & Interpretations for certain activities and the clarity of this on the schedules. BPA and damage have always been dealt with as O&I. However, the use of Opinions and Interpretations in other areas, such as footwear comparison, has been less clear. Not everything that is seen as subjective is necessarily an opinion. However, a statement of compliance with a limit, e.g. drink driving, is not an opinion. It was also noted that accreditation for this area covers the process of how an opinion or interpretation is arrived at, rather than the opinion itself. LAB 13 is the UKAS document used in the assessment of Opinions and Interpretations, however, this is not forensic specific. Action 6: KJM to review slides so they can be included in the minutes. 10. AOB KJM informed that UKAS have had interest from organisations who want to be accredited for digital screening on site, in particular mobile phone downloads. The interest has been from enforcement rather than policing area. So there is a need to start to discuss how UKAS might take this forward. This can be discussed further at the next meeting, including the consideration of what is possible to accredit and what is lawful. Action 7: KJM to add to the agenda for the next meeting and produce a document on potential suitable standards for accreditation for digital screening on sites on suitable standards. KJM asked about Para DNA Usage restrictions with regards to accreditation. AR confirmed that ACPO communication went out stating ParaDNA shouldn t be used unless accredited. Therefore if they are doing this now it is a breach. 11. Date of next meeting The date of the next meeting is 10 th September. Action 8: KJM to agree dates for next few meetings FSTAC (14) 07 Page 5 of 5