MORE than £2million has been slashed from Lancashire Police’s forensic budget since 2010, new figures show.

The £2.3million reduction is one of the largest in the North of England which also saw Greater Manchester Police’s spending on forensics fall to £13.8million and Northumbria Police’s spending drop by nearly £1.4million.

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Lancashire Police said that the cutback in spending was made after making ‘very difficult and challenging decisions’ and said that it was committed to make sure that the level of spending does not adversely impact on its service to victims of crime and bringing offenders to justice.

Across the north, more than £11.6million of cutbacks to services including DNA profiling and fingerprinting have been made between 2010 and 2014.

Only one of eight forces in the north, Durham Constabulary, saw the amount rise by just £5,241 in the same period.

The figures come after a project by Lancashire Police commissioner Clive Grunshaw aimed at speeding up the time it takes to obtain DNA profiles from crime scenes scooped £431,000 in government funding last year.

Det chief supt Ian Critchley, head of crime at Lancashire Police, said: “We have invested in our specialist and accredited staff within our scientific support department to ensure we both deploy and attend crimes that yield maximum forensic evidence, and then undertake a vast majority of further research and examination around for example DNA , fingerprint, footwear and drugs within the constabulary.

“We have also led on innovative new techniques both locally and nationally and we will continue to do so.

“We have had to make very difficult and challenging decisions around our forensic budget like we are doing across all areas of policing in Lancashire given the austerity measures.

“But we are committed to seeking to ensure that this does not adversely impact on our service to victims of crime and to bringing offenders to justice.

“Reported crime in Lancashire, in some more traditional policing areas, over many years has gone down through our problem-solving approach and we should be very proud of this.

“However, it must be recognised with societal changes that demand is increasing in many high-risk areas such as child abuse, child sexual exploitation online, cyber crime, and the threat posed by terrorism. These are areas the public rightly expect the police service to deal with, be protected from and to investigate thoroughly.

“The nature of demand is changing and we are responding to that.”