FS CHANGE PROGRAMME – Progress against the Plan

Our Change Programme Plan (Appendix A) lists the high-level delivery milestones of the Forensic Services Change Programme. The balanced scorecard summary below provides a summary of current progress against the plan for key delivery milestones and current activity.

The Change Programme continues to track green for the majority of key milestone activity:

The National Tasking Unit and new ways of working in Search & Recovery Scenes were successfully delivered and continue to embed within the organisation, resulting in improved utilisation of our Scene Examination resource.

Centralisation of resource allocation for attendance at fire scenes has been successfully delivered, with this service now being provided nationally from our chemistry team based at the Scottish Crime Campus. This transition will allow us to continue to build our capacity for a faster response to scene examination requests for other crime types. 

Successful delivery of Phase 1 of the Operating Model People Plan has seen the integration of our new Capability Team Managers along with the introduction of our new Forensic Operations Lead role. The Forensic Operations Lead role will deliver an improved responsiveness to complex, multi-discipline operations and we are already receiving positive feedback from partners as this role continues to embed across the organisation.

The majority of our people have now transitioned to their new contracts and role profiles reflective of the target operating model structure. Interim management and team alignment solutions have been implemented whilst consequential recruitment from successful promotions concludes.

Manual DNA processing has been successfully removed from our Aberdeen and Edinburgh Laboratories, resulting in improved utilisation of batch processing at our Glasgow & Dundee sites, ultimately leading to faster turn round times for relevant DNA samples.

The initial management development training programme for our new Capability Team Managers is now complete. Collective sessions on role remits, responsibilities and matrix management have been held for all our managers prior to the launch of the training needs analysis (TNA) activity. Outcomes of the TNA will underpin a management development programme which will better support and develop our managers as people and performance focused leaders in our new operating model.

Development of the full business case (FBC) for our core operating system continues to progress. The procurement exercise to secure professional services to support the FBC build is nearly complete
and a full update will be provided to the SPA Resources Committee in December.

Challenges in securing the level of investment required for full resourcing of our operating model have impacted on the timelines for implementation. Prioritisation and planning activity for reinvestment of savings resulting from the efficiency plan & benefits realisation continues. Implementation timelines will be refreshed
once complete.