§ Lord Hogg of Cumbernauldasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will publish the annual report for the Forensic Science Service. [HL3041]
§ Lord Williams of MostynI have today laid before Parliament copies of the Forensic Science Service (FSS) Annual Report and Accounts for 1997–98.
The report and accounts detail the agency's performance against its targets. The FSS continues to grow at a signficant pace, and efficiency savings are at the highest level since it became an agency in 1991. The FSS passes on these improvements to customers through real price reductions and higher investment in both research and development and infrastructure to improve the quality of products and services.
The achievement on four main indicators was as follows.
Full cost recovery
The target was exceeded. The operating surplus before exceptional items after interest was £3 million, representing a recovery of costs of 131WA 105.3 per cent. This is sufficient to recover brought forward accumulated deficit of £2 million.
Unit cost £80.91
The target was exceeded. The unit cost achieved was £79.88, representing an underlying efficiency improvement of 5.8 per cent. (against a target of 3.9 per cent.).
Achieve 90 per cent. of agreed delivery dates.
72 per cent. of agreed delivery dates was achieved. The increased volume of business made it impossible to achieve this target. The number of delivered jobs was well ahead of expectations, but increases in capacity are in hand to meet future customer demands within the target times.
Maintain quality accreditation (NAMAS M10 and BS EN ISO 9001)
Accreditation was maintained and extended to other scientific areas.
The total number of delivered jobs—which represent individual parts of a case—showed a greater than predicted increase of 28 per cent. Measures were put in place to minimise the impact on turnaround times.
The speed of delivery of DNA jobs will be further improved by the recruitment of more scientific staff and the new DNA unit at Huntingdon.