The original ministerial announcement of funding to the Council for the Registration of Forensic Practitioners (CRFP) in 1999 was expressly subject to the CRFP’s performance, particularly the condition that it became self-financing through registrant’s fees and there should not be a long-term reliance on grant.
By the time CRFP closed, this goal of a self-funding independent accreditation body had not been achieved and the company was facing a long-term shortfall of funding, because the registration income did not match the expenditure—and would not have matched it, irrespective of whether the Government grant had been continued or not. This was likely to become considerably worse because of the withdrawal of support for the registration process by police forces.
The grant was latterly provided by the National Policing Improvement Agency, who last year jointly commissioned with the CRFP an independent analysis of CRFP’s finances. Following this, the CRFP’s financial situation, as detailed above, was clear and further commitment of public money to CRFP would have amounted to a long-term commitment to funding the company without full public control, which would not have been a justifiable or sustainable approach. I, and ministerial colleagues, were kept fully briefed on this issue throughout.