Staffordshire crime scene visits cut to save £560k
A total of £560,000 has been cut from the forensics budget of Staffordshire Police by reducing the number of crime scenes visited by officers.
The savings were made following a review of the Stafford-based forensics department. It discovered that too many teams – almost half – were returning to base without any useful evidence.
Bosses are now taking a more targeted approach by sending scenes of crime officers only to incidents where they are more likely to uncover evidence.
Some £560,000 has been slashed from the budget in all, although the police will not disclose what the overall forensics budget was before the cuts were made.
The move was revealed in a quality performance report which also showed forensics teams were not meeting a target of attending 90 per cent of domestic burglaries.
Assistant Chief Constable Nick Baker said that whereas officers used to be sent to all incidents of crime, the force was now more discerning in dispatching manpower.
He said: "Following a force review, we have made efficiency savings of £560,000 to forensic work.
"Part of these efficiency savings has been to take a more targeted approach to attending incidents which has meant we can improve performance to better serve the communities of Staffordshire while reducing resources.
"Dealing with what matters to our communities is important to us and we look to attend about 90 per cent of burglary dwellings. The remaining burglaries won't have attendance by forensic investigators because we don't have a victim – for example if a property is empty it is still classed as a burglary dwelling. These properties will still be investigated by detectives to reach a successful conclusion by other means."
