Report Detail

Background
In October 2019, Section 5A of the Road Traffic Act 1988 came into force in Scotland. This legislation set out a specific offence of driving with a specified controlled drug above a prescribed limit. In addition, Section 4 of the Road Traffic Act sets out an offence of driving while impaired or unfit to drive. Section 4 offences are significantly more difficult to prove in court for a range of reasons including the subjectivity of the roadside field impairment test.

Within legislation, and since the COVID Pandemic, a temporary statutory time limit (STL) of 12 months was introduced. The STL returned to six months on 30 November 2024.

Scottish Police Authority (SPA) Forensic Services (FS) and Police Scotland (PS) have on a monthly basis, an agreed capacity for the submission of drug driving samples which, forecasts a demand of 250 cases per month, stretching to 270 when required. Note: additional planning, relative to additional outsourcing requirements, is undertaken for specific PSoS campaigns.

Criminal Toxicology – Demand Capacity and Performance

Demand
Q2 demand saw an average case submission rate of 325 cases per month with 166 cases submitted above maximum internal capacity within this quarter. Q3 has seen a further rise in the levels of submission with the average submission rate within the quarter of 339 cases per month. Overall, within Q3, 209 cases were submitted above the maximum internal capacity. This level of demand is 23% above the 270-case maximum when measured over the last six months.

Demand has outstripped combined internal and external output over Q3. Internal output declined due to technical issues (now resolved) experienced in October and November and a high staff absence rate in November and December 2025. An increased use of outsourcing support within November, December and January will see the gap recovered over Q4. Its worthy of note that continued demand above agreed capacity will require additional outsource support.

Capacity
Internal output remains consistently close to expected capacity, with a Q3 average of 231 drug driving cases completed per month. Technical issues experienced in October and staff resource issues in November and December slightly impacted internal capacity which was supported via increased use of outsourcing.

Further increases in internal output are unlikely due to reaching the existing maximum capacity levels within the reporting cadre of the criminal toxicology team.

Outsource partners have continued to provide additional support over Q3 2025/26, resulting in an output of 152 cases across the quarter with 92% of cases meeting the 56 day outsource target.

Average combined output in Q3 2025-26 was 282 cases per month. The average demand over the same period was 339 cases per month. This shortfall has been supported by increased outsourcing within December 2025 and January 2026 with an expected recovery within Q4.

Internal caseload remains in a strong position as illustrated below. All of the late cases detailed below are due to late submissions from Police Scotland. Reduced analysis is implemented where required to ensure cases are reported with sufficient time to progress prior to time bar.

Outsourcing
At the time of writing, Forensic Services continue to be supported by a single [external] supplier. Scheduled outsourcing is utilised to support staff abstraction during development work planned throughout the year and is managed through an existing budget allocation. Increases in demand over the forecasted levels require additional outsourcing (or a reduction in development activity) when internal capacity requires augmented. This additional outsourcing comes at a financial cost, not forecast within the annual budget.

Reliance on a single provider and the associated unpredictable demand across Scotland, and the rest of the UK, has resulted in this being identified as a risk. To support mitigating the risk, communication and engagement with the external provider remains regular and consistent to ensure any potential escalation is identified at the earliest opportunity.

In this regard, the most recent engagement with the FS external supplier provides continued assurance in relation to outsourcing requirements up to 100 samples per month. Additional capacity has been made available from Q2 2025-26 which has been utilised in Q3 to support the reduction in internal capacity due to technical issues and high staff absence.

External supplier engagement remains ongoing with short and medium-term options subject to further discussions and dependant on available budget.

SPA FS have reallocated £166K from revenue budget to increase the outsource budget to ~£466K to ensure sufficient funds are available to cope with the anticipated increase in demand (out with the PSoS drug driving pilot) in FY 2025-2026.
Performance

Internal performance for Section 5a cases remains on target with the rolling average meeting the 95% target and, the Q3 average reporting at 97.67%.

Some technical challenges (now resolved) impacted the internal performance for Section 4 cases over Q3 resulting in a reduction to 58% compliance to the 90-day target. These cases were also impacted by the higher than anticipated staff absence rate in November.

The proportion of Section 4 work sits at around 3% of our total drug driving caseload – a low proportion of the total drug driving workload.

Toxicology Development Plan
Version 4 of the Toxicology Development Plan commenced in April 2025. The plan focuses on three main areas:
• Introduction of a new drugs panel – Panel B.
• QToF instrument – method development, validation and implementation.
• Alcohol instrumentation – replacement of end-of-life equipment

The validation work required to introduce the first new drugs panel (Panel B) was slightly delayed in Q3 due to higher the anticipated staff absences within the lab team. This validation work is scheduled for completion and implementation in Q4.

The QToF instrumentation installation continues to progress slow time with technical issues impacting completion. Initial administrative training has been completed with the first phase of technical training now being scheduled. The development plan for the QToF wil be reassessed upon completion of phase one training.

Six-Month Timeline
The six-month timeline, agreed within the Drug Driving MOU, remains live with performance reported monthly via Operation Hitch.

The collective flexibility introduced via the stretch targets detailed within the timeline is used to support increased compliance from incident date to COPFS receipt, as detailed below. The dip in Section 4 performance across the quarter is due to the aforementioned technical and staff resource issues.

PSoS performance has been consistent, with 95% of cases being submitted within the 28-day stretch target in Q3. The chart below illustrates the number of cases submitted by PSoS out with the 28 days.

No new cases have been rejected with no analysis completed with just the previously reported 2 Section 4 cases having been rejected since the implementation of the six-month STL. This equates to less than 0.1% of the drug driving cases submitted over this time period.

There has been an increase in the number of cases reduced analysis within Q3 due to late submission from 2 in Q2 to 8 within Q3. This relates to around 0.7% of the drug driving cases submitted within Q3.

Long-Term Sustainable Model
Since the approval of the Initial Business Case (IBC) for the Long-Term Sustainable Model (LTSM) work has commenced with partners to progress to the Final Business Case (FBC) with a view to delivering a sustainable criminal toxicology service for the people of Scotland.

The LTSM project board meets monthly to discuss progress with workstreams and workstream leads now agreed and identified.

Previously identified challenages around PSoS Estates support have been resolved.

The PSoS phased roll out drug wipe use to a select number of officers within subdivisions of A and U divisions (Op Seltern) commenced in Q3 as planned. The administration of the drug driving cases to be outsourced during the pilot will be supported by SPA FS. This pilot will gather fundamental demand information which can be utilised to further direct the FBC.

It is is recognised that the development of the FBC, funding discussions and subsequent approval will take several years to materialise into tangible outputs for FS.

Summary

This section of the report highlights the current demand associated with Drug Driving and the methods employed by Forensic Services to meet that demand, through a hybrid model of internal and external resourcing.

The implications of increasing demand highlight the requirement for capacity and demand to be the subject of multi-agency planning to ensure close alignment.

The risks associated with insufficient planning include the potential for cases to be time barred and expected performance criteria against the six-month timeline not being met.

Consistently high internal performance supported by outsourcing when required ensure Criminal Toxicology are in a good position to meet agreed levels of demand.