One of our members got an email with a link to a survey (copied below), their renewal is coming up at the end of this year, and they have been asked if they would like to participate.
It should be noted the 'third party' is a company "led by a person known to [the] police and his company already provides firearms licensing documentation to us."police firearms licensing wrote: FIREARMS LICENSING proof of concept exercise.
*** PLEASE NOTE ***
IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES [THE] POLICE WILL REMAIN THE AUTHORISING AUTHORITY FOR THE RENEWAL OF YOUR CERTIFICATE
[The] police Firearms Licensing is conducting a proof of concept exercise to enhance the efficiency and speed of licence renewals.
We would like to offer you the opportunity to participate in this exercise.
By providing your consent to share your name, email address and renewal date with a third-party company you can be considered for inclusion in this initiative.
Your information will only be shared with the third-party if you choose to participate.
If you opt in, the third-party will contact you to explain the process in detail.
Essentially, you will fill out a single, online form and the third-party will handle all necessary paperwork and information.
The third-party will correlate all the required information, check the forms are correct and then submit your renewal documentation along with the relevant medical report to the firearms licensing to allow the police to process your renewal.
You will receive a copy of the medical report and application form submitted.
Your consent to share information does not obligate you to continue with the third-party for your renewal process, and you can still choose to renew through the normal method.
To indicate your interest in participating, please complete the form below and respond with YES
if you do not wish to participate you do not need to do anything with this form
The Firearms Licensing department remains in control of all legal aspects and suitability decisions throughout the process.
I like the idea of having all my docs completed for me, but it's not that hard a job and I like to make sure all the information is correct, but more than that, all my information is in my control (as much as it could be anyway).
It would help to weed out the incorrectly filled out or incomplete forms, but does this take up a lot of the FLD's time?
Perhaps for the older members of our community that are not so computer savvy, this will help.
I hope that the cost of this service is taken from our increased fees and not an added cost to shooters.
Is this the start of out-sourcing the whole process? Now, I could get behind that.
What are your thoughts on this?
Are other forces considering this?
