More than 60 senior figures from policing, criminal justice and government have come together to discuss the risks and opportunities in forensics, at a new face-to-face event hosted by the FCN on behalf of the NPCC.

Held in Birmingham in September, the Forensics Day was an invitation-only event chaired by NPCC Forensic Portfolio Lead, Chief Constable Nick Dean.

The event centred around presentations and discussions on five special interest topics: regulation and compliance, the forensic marketplace, the future of digital forensics, research and innovation, and forensic collision investigation.

There were also updates given on wide-ranging topics including the use of AI to aid digital forensic investigations, the deployment of a digital fingerprint capability by the NPCC Digital Forensics Programme, the Home Office’s Police Productivity Review, and the latest forensic considerations within the CPS.

Commenting after the event, CC Dean said:

“The objective today was to highlight concerns across forensics and showcase good work, an opportunity to be bring everybody up to speed on the main issues affecting forensics.

“There are certainly some common themes across all of forensics. One of those is the fact that we must work together, and another is we need to think have serious discussions about what forensic work is done nationally, regionally and locally. We must grasp the opportunities here and now and contribute to future discussions.

“Thank you to everyone in the portfolio who helped arrange a really successful and well-received event.”

Attendees at the event called it “a hugely valuable day of insight, capability development and horizon scanning” with “some really good discussions”.

FCN’s Managing Director, John Armstrong, added:

“It was great to bring together so many influential figures to take a holistic view of the forensic landscape. This was probably the first in time we’ve done so face-to-face in several years. We look forward to following up on the discussions and taking the work forwards.”

Plans are underway to hold similar events in coming years.

If you’d like to meet FCN’s people, we are attending various upcoming events including the Forensic Science Regulator’s annual conference in Leeds on 9-10 October, and the NPCC/APPC Summit on 19-20 November.