Delegates will outline how the sale of FSS will damage both the criminal justice system and the fight against crime. They will describe the dangers of privatisation, which include:

• a reduction in the amount of evidence sent for analysis due to increased charges
• loss of the public service ethos
• an emphasis on more profitable commercial work
• the risk to future research and development, and
• the lack of any effective regulation over a near monopoly private company.

The campaign against privatisation has already secured support from members of all the chief political parties – 79 have now signed an early day motion opposing the sale. The result of an FSS ballot on industrial action over pay will be announced on the same day as the debate.

More than four hundred delegates from 252 Prospect branches will attend the conference to debate motions ranging from energy, agriculture and international issues to social and public policy, pensions and changes within the civil service.

The main three-day conference will be preceded by the union’s two sector conferences on May 16. Delegates at the civil service sector will debate a raft of motions calling for a return to national pay bargaining and opposition to the relocation of jobs out of the south-east; while the EMA sector conference will be dominated by warnings to invest in the electricity network or face failures of supply.

Notes:To view early day motion 348 visit http://edm.ais.co.uk

A transcript of a Westminster Hall debate on the FSS privatisation can be viewed at www.publications.parliament.uk

Against the Evidence, a leaflet outlining the union’s case against privatisation, is available in pdf format.