Member

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, asked about cost savings and efficiencies. The Explanatory Memorandum claims that the changes to regulation will lead to a cost saving for police of around £1 million per annum, and that figure is based on data from the office of the Forensic Science Regulator. It is envisaged that that reduction in cost for policing will be at least 50%, should the current accreditation model remain. That in itself saves around £565,000 in an average year. In addition, the regulator also believes that the clarification measures in version 2 of the code, on the use of forensic DNA grade consumables, will also reduce costs for policing by a further £350,000 per annum. Taken with other changes relating to contamination measures and validation exercises, the overall changes are around £1 million.