Con-Dems to abolish Forensic Science Service

[Ivor the Engineer]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11989225

The government-owned Forensic Science Service, which employs 1,600 people, is to be wound up - closing by 2012.

Crime Reduction Minister James Brokenshire said the Birmingham-based service was losing about £2m a month and could run out of money in January.

What could possibly go wrong with a free market in forensic science?

 

[theprestige]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11989225



What could possibly go wrong with a free market in forensic science?

Probably the same things that can go wrong with a state monopoly in forensic science.

For example, based on this article, you don't get to have services you're unable to pay for. Free market, state monopoly, doesn't matter. Same thing goes wrong either way.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Probably the same things that can go wrong with a state monopoly in forensic science.

For example, based on this article, you don't get to have services you're unable to pay for. Free market, state monopoly, doesn't matter. Same thing goes wrong either way.

I disagree. Bringing the profit motive and renewal of service contracts will reduce the confidence one can have in the quality and impartiality of the analysis of forensic evidence. It doesn't fill me with confidence that the forensic evidence, which often plays a major part in criminal court cases, will now be provided by the lowest bidder or most "successful" private labs.

We only have to look at what has happened in the health sector to see that private companies are only interested in the routine stuff which is easy to make a profit on. This is one of the reasons the FSS was making a loss of £2m a month, though why anyone would think forensic science should in general be a profit making enterprise only goes to increase my conviction that the country is governed by self-serving bastards, whose decisions are determined by party donors and private companies whose boards they've been promised a seat on when they leave office.

 

[nvidiot]

Im sorry but forensic science is supposed to run a profit?

Whut?

 

[richardm]

Im sorry but forensic science is supposed to run a profit?

Whut?

I'm not at all clear how that is supposed to work. Are they going to start charging the CPS to produce evidence? Or do they do that already?

Is it the case that they're making a loss of £2 million a month, or do they actually mean that it costs £2 million a month to run? If the latter then considering that they apparently employ 1,600 people that's not bad going.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

I'm not at all clear how that is supposed to work. Are they going to start charging the CPS to produce evidence? Or do they do that already?

<snip>

It's been happening for quite a while. Tony Blair's lot thought it would be a good idea to introduce the private sector and the Con Dems have put the final nail in the FSS's coffin.

The FSS has a significant R&D culture and have developed many novel forensic techniques (e.g., mDNA) and the expertise to take on difficult work. Private companies can provide the routine services at lower cost because they don't do any significant R&D or take on difficult work. These are the companies the FSS was supposed to compete with.

 

[The Don]

So essentially the same MO that's applied to other situations (healthcare and mail delivery to name but two). The public sector is required to provide a service to all but has to compete against a private sector who can pick and choose the work they take on. As you'd expect, the private sector chooses to take on profitable, routine work leaving the Public sector to do the expensive, difficult stuff.

Amazing how private sector costs are significantly lower.

I wonder where new advances in forensic science will come from if R&D spending is curtailed

 

[BenBurch]

I can tell you what happened here in Illinois;

As I recall, the lab the State Police were sending things to for analysis was found to have been simply faking results...

 

[talkie toaster]

Probably won't matter any way, reduction in Police funding will probably stop forces carrying out expensive, big, forensically heavy investigations due to the cost.

Factor in elected Police Chiefs who will get re-elected if they can stop the gang of Hoodies monopolising the shopping centre and get the the little bast tinkers to stop kicking balls into Mrs Jenkins prize dahlias.

Closure of courts will probably lead to massive backlogs so cases will likely end up being dropped or breakdown when witnesses have to travel a billion miles to court and can't take time off from work from fear of losing vital wages that are needed to pay for inflation increases and support their children's education at Uni if they get to Uni, which probably won't happen as more schools are shut and the super duper Free School in the the old butchers shop was over subscribed thus actually enabling them to take time off from work to travel the billion miles to court to give evidence.

Good cohesive policy thinking, they don't just make it up on the back of a "Congratulations You've won a free entry for a chance to win a reclining chair or £25 Marks and Spencers vouchers as a runner up" envelope.

Wait.......no, sorry that's exactly what they do.

 

[richardm]

reduction in Police funding will probably stop forces carrying out expensive, big, forensically heavy investigations due to the cost ... cases will likely end up being dropped or breakdown when witnesses have to travel a billion miles to court and can't take time off from work from fear of losing vital wages

Aha! Suddenly the crippling of Legal Aid becomes obvious: It is to remove the problem of not having any forensic evidence or witnesses by making it so expensive to mount a defence that everyone has to plead guilty.

In turn this means that there will be plenty of low-grade criminals around who can be forced to do lots of community work like sweeping streets, and since it's only the idle poor who will be in this position it gives the bonus that they won't be sitting around claiming benefits.

It's actually quite admirably joined-up.

 

[theprestige]

Im sorry but forensic science is supposed to run a profit?

Whut?

Well obviously forensic scientists are supposed to run a profit, else they would soon die of starvation and be of no use to anybody.

And the really good forensic scientists are supposed to be rewarded in proportion to their skill and their experience and the value they return to their customers.

Forensic science being such a valuable good to the government and the citizenry, it is to be assumed that the government would only hire the very best forensic scientists, and pay them nothing less than top wages for their work.

But as this story clearly demonstrates, this is not the case. Instead, the government finds that quality forensic science costs more than it is willing to spend. So it finds it convenient to spend less, and presumably get less.

I'm not saying that the free market will give you Chicken Cordon Bleu for the price of a Chicken McNugget. I am saying that if you're only willing to pay the price of a Chicken McNugget, it's not the free market's fault that you don't get Chicken Cordon Bleu.

I also think that Ivor underestimates the quality of work delivered by skilled professionals when their pay is commensurate with the value they deliver. If the government wants to create a business environment where forensic scientists are concerned about profit margins and contract renewals, then that's hardly the free market's fault.

On the other hand, if the government wants to create a business environment where forensic scientists are eager to deliver quality work for quality recompense, I'm sure the free market can easily accommodate that.

I'm sure the government kitchens could prepare Chicken Cordon Bleu just as easily as any private for-profit chef. The government's problem is always that it wants to do so on a Chicken McNugget budget. And this is why government programs have the same problems as private enterprise: because ultimately, they have the same constraints (give or take a monopoly on force).