The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

With Labour threatening to recover the full cost of firearms licensing to fund the youth hubs they are talking about forming, does anyone have any accurate figures for each Police force for how much their firearms licensing department costs to operate against the revenue received? By costs to run I mean salaries, phone bill, mileage, NI and pension contributions etc. each force will be different but with at least 2 forces having over 30,000 licences issued, we must be talking a substantial sum of money…..

Tallguy wrote: ↑Sun Jun 16, 2024 6:38 pm With Labour threatening to recover the full cost of firearms licensing to fund the youth hubs they are talking about forming, does anyone have any accurate figures for each Police force for how much their firearms licensing department costs to operate against the revenue received? By costs to run I mean salaries, phone bill, mileage, NI and pension contributions etc. each force will be different but with at least 2 forces having over 30,000 licences issued, we must be talking a substantial sum of money…..

The total number of FAC/SGCs is about 147k FAC's and 500k SGC's, so thats about £30 per cert over their life so £6-7 a year. Its not a strong argument! better to focus on how can full cost recovery have a surplus to divert to other agendas? & is that not now just a tax without doing any tax law changes? vs a charge & what is the service delivery for the payment as atm in may areas is simply unacceptable!

There are bigger issues to consider when voting for XY or Z & anyway who believes any manifesto? they are all lies & hype!

It's in the Labour manifecto so it's going to happen - if you elect them. It's an easy one to bring in - who'd oppose it?

If the cost of an FAC were to rise to say £250 - wouldn't that cause a lot of shooters to give up?

Then the running cost of a Firearms Department would have to be borne by an even smaller number of FAC holders - further increasing the cost of an FAC.

Dont vote labour problem solved.

This has come up before,didn't basc (I believe it was at the time) say that's fine put up fac costs,but fir that we want an actual service,that produces results,no more 6 months for variations when a force can do it there and then at a shooting show makes no sense whatsoever....then nothing more was heard.

the running man wrote: ↑Mon Jun 17, 2024 5:28 am This has come up before,didn't basc (I believe it was at the time) say that's fine put up fac costs,but fir that we want an actual service,that produces results,no more 6 months for variations when a force can do it there and then at a shooting show makes no sense whatsoever....then nothing more was heard.

After the Cumbrian shootings the fees for firearms licensing were questioned as they hadn't been increased in 10 years or so. A full cost recovery figure was arrived at based on all forces switching to electronic forms/e-commerce and the fees were adjusted to that full cost recovery figure. It is already in effect.

Then the media frenzy and passing public interest died down and the funds raised were syphoned off into other Police money pits.

Meanwhile my force only stopped asking for payments to be made by cheque 2 years ago and allowed you to apply for things online last year....

Anyone who thinks we will get a fair shake with this idea must be naive. The disparity of costs for issuing FAC/SC was highlighted by Colin Greenwood in his excellent book "Firearms Control" back in the 1970 and nothing has changed. Different police forces will all have different ideas of the cost involved, some charging for wear of the carpets and depreciation of the building etc. If someone says "You will get full recovery of costs, just make out a list and we'll send you the cheque" how do you think it will turn out?
This is the results of a recent BASC survey - you will see that the cost of issuing a certificate in South Yorkshire is £65 but to issue the same certificate in Durham it's £522
https://basc.org.uk/firearms/firearms-l ... gue-table/

What other areas where there is a police involvement such as football matches, protest control, Notting hill Carnival, Gay Pride, Controlled drugs register for pharmacy's etc. are ever run on the basis of cost recovery?

So why does Durham have a cost that is 8 times that of South Yorkshire for issuing a licence? Do they have similar numbers of staff and licences issued? Why are South Yorkshire that efficient? Good management? A Chief Constable who actually invests in the FLD?

This needs much further investigation.

So much is now done at the "push of a button".

The PNC check - takes a few seconds. They have a social media and on-line "scraper" which apparently comes back with a Red/Amber/Green rating - again at the push of a button. Both of those are done by admin staff. So the interview - now being done on video conferencing for renewals requires maybe 30 minutes from the FEO or in an inspection required for a grant a one hour slot. Requesting and reading references ... maybe another 30 mintes ... The signatures are even done electronically So, yes there are costs, but it is certainly down in the sub £80 region.

One relatively high cost - postage. £1.35 for each letter. The Met sends out a reminder for both SGC aand FAC seperately, then at present and 8 week extension for each and finally the certificates. So, three sets of postages for each £4.05 for SGC and £4.05 for FAC. For a £49 renewal £4.05 is a lot. On a coterminus, with an FAC renewal at £62 and Coterminus at £65 they are loosing out!

Polchraine wrote: ↑Wed Jun 19, 2024 9:31 am So much is now done at the "push of a button".

The PNC check - takes a few seconds. They have a social media and on-line "scraper" which apparently comes back with a Red/Amber/Green rating - again at the push of a button. Both of those are done by admin staff.

Please explain how the social media and on-line scraper work? How does it detect things like posts on here which aren’t in my name etc? What product is being used?