Call to review closure of Chorley forensic office (From Lancashire Telegraph)
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Call to review closure of Chorley forensic office
9:51am Friday 14th October 2011 in Coppull
A PARLIAMENTARY committee has urged the Prime Minister to review the decision to close the Forensic Science Service.
Hundreds of Lancashire workers lost their jobs last year when the Washington Hall centre, near Chorley, was closed.
The chair of the Commons Science and Technology Committee, Andrew Miller MP, has concluded that the Government may have based its decision on out of date information.
When the FSS closure decision was announced last December, the rationale given was that it was losing £2m a month.
But the committee claims this figure failed to take into account savings from a transformation programme.
In its concluding recommendations, the Science and Technology Committee’s report into the closure plans found that: “The Government did not consider enough evidence in its decision-making.
“The impacts on research and development, on the capacity of private providers to absorb the FSS’ market share, on the future of the archives and on the wider impacts to the criminal justice system appear to have been hastily overlooked in favour of the financial bottom line.”
