Gloucestershire Police Freeze FAC/SGC applications

[63]

Just went to the Gloucestershire Police website to apply for an FAC again (I gave it up a few years ago when I moved abroad for a while) and was disappointed to find the message below!

I have seen they've been advertising hard for new FEO's - I guess maybe someone has quit since I looked last week! Any had experience of forces elsewhere doing the same thing? Just trying to weigh my options but short of moving house I don't think I have any really.

 

[timbrayford]

Complain to your police and crime commissioner, firearms licensing is a statutory obligation on the police and not a descretionary service that they may opt in and out of on a random basis

 

[Rake Aboot]

^ This

Disgusting treatment of the most law abiding section of society

 

[Tikkat1x]

outrageous

 

[63]

I will bang a note in to the PCC, and possibly the Chief Constable (if I can't corner him somewhere....) but even if they reopen new applications a 2 year wait is constructively the same thing as a ban anyway.

It did make me curious as to how much staffing a FLD actually requires though, and got me thinking:

A quick estimate - there are 147,000 FAC holders in the UK, and about. 68.3 million people. That means about 1/465 of the population have an FAC.

Gloucestershire has a population of about 646,627 - which implies an FAC holding population of about 1390 people. If each FAC renews every fifth year, they must be processing approx 278 renewals a year. Assuming a (probably generous) 10% turn over in FACs a year as old holders die or give them up, and new holders apply, we might get to a figure of 139 new applications. In total 417 FAC grants/renewals a year. With approx 224 working days a year (allowing for Weekends, bank holidays, and 30 days paid public sector leave), a reasonable estimate is that Gloucestershire Police need to turn around something in the order of 2 FAC grant/renewals per working day. There are approx 3.75 SGC to each FAC, and they renew at the same rate, so we're looking at a requirement to do about 10 odd renewals across both licences a day. (I realise this doesn't cover all the other oddities like RFD, Explosives licences and so on, or variations, but I don't have any data on them to estimate off)

Whilst the home visits have the potential to be spectactularly inefficient - as with drive time etc I expect many FEO's only manage two or three a day, most of the rest of the process is back end paperwork - checking all documentation is correct, record checking on the PNC, checking Drs notes etc. One might reasonably hope that an admin team of 4 or 5 people could process a lot of that in a day, whilst a similarly sized team of FEO's did visits.

The obvious solution to cost saving at a national level is to re-examine cert length - moving to a 7 year cert, or even a 10 year cert, would push the workload down considerably, and if the new medical flagging system is effective, there is arguably little need to 're-asses' an individual fully as frequently as every 5th year. Even just moving the requirement for a home visit to 'every other' renewal would save quite a lot of man hours and money, without obviously increasing risk (one could envisage a lighter touch 'intermediate' set of paperwork checks, and maybe a phone interview and a new medical cert at the 5 year point)

 

[Stalker62]

Well it's not ideal....

Complaining to anyone will do absolutely nothing - other than waste both your and their time.

They know it is a statutory obligation.
The Chief Constable knows this, as does the PCC.

They do not have the staff. It is 'temporary'. They are trying (they need to) address it.

I do feel sorry for both sides - it is indeed, a sorry state of affairs.

 

[2Ll’s]

I will bang a note in to the PCC, and possibly the Chief Constable (if I can't corner him somewhere....) but even if they reopen new applications a 2 year wait is constructively the same thing as a ban anyway.

It did make me curious as to how much staffing a FLD actually requires though, and got me thinking:

A quick estimate - there are 147,000 FAC holders in the UK, and about. 68.3 million people. That means about 1/465 of the population have an FAC.

Gloucestershire has a population of about 646,627 - which implies an FAC holding population of about 1390 people. If each FAC renews every fifth year, they must be processing approx 278 renewals a year. Assuming a (probably generous) 10% turn over in FACs a year as old holders die or give them up, and new holders apply, we might get to a figure of 139 new applications. In total 417 FAC grants/renewals a year. With approx 224 working days a year (allowing for Weekends, bank holidays, and 30 days paid public sector leave), a reasonable estimate is that Gloucestershire Police need to turn around something in the order of 2 FAC grant/renewals per working day. There are approx 3.75 SGC to each FAC, and they renew at the same rate, so we're looking at a requirement to do about 10 odd renewals across both licences a day. (I realise this doesn't cover all the other oddities like RFD, Explosives licences and so on, or variations, but I don't have any data on them to estimate off)

Whilst the home visits have the potential to be spectactularly inefficient - as with drive time etc I expect many FEO's only manage two or three a day, most of the rest of the process is back end paperwork - checking all documentation is correct, record checking on the PNC, checking Drs notes etc. One might reasonably hope that an admin team of 4 or 5 people could process a lot of that in a day, whilst a similarly sized team of FEO's did visits.

The obvious solution to cost saving at a national level is to re-examine cert length - moving to a 7 year cert, or even a 10 year cert, would push the workload down considerably, and if the new medical flagging system is effective, there is arguably little need to 're-asses' an individual fully as frequently as every 5th year. Even just moving the requirement for a home visit to 'every other' renewal would save quite a lot of man hours and money, without obviously increasing risk (one could envisage a lighter touch 'intermediate' set of paperwork checks, and maybe a phone interview and a new medical cert at the 5 year point)

Not making any excuses as it took me 2 years to get mine, however since then I have had nothing but exemplary experiences from Gloucester firearms team, they are quick at turning things around for variations etc.

No point in writing to the Chief Constable as i believe he was suspended a month or so ago.

There are also not 1390 holders in Gloucestershire but 14,000 SHC and FAC holders at present.

They have a hard job with that amount of people to process changes etc, let alone new applications which take even longer now due to Plymouth and other situations.

 

[Klenchblaize]

Write to your MP and register both your concern for the lack of resourcing and incredulity that you may be so inconvenienced.

While unlikely to solicit sympathy or indeed action to remedy this disgraceful situation, it serves the purpose of a;- formally documenting these shortcomings and b;- is to some degree a vent for your understandable frustration.

K

 

[WalkedUp]

Move county temporarily!

 

[wytonpjs]

Well it's not ideal....

Complaining to anyone will do absolutely nothing - other than waste both your and their time.

They know it is a statutory obligation.
The Chief Constable knows this, as does the PCC.

They do not have the staff. It is 'temporary'. They are trying (they need to) address it.

I do feel sorry for both sides - it is indeed, a sorry state of affairs.

I recently looked at their advert for firearms enquiry officers, based out of the force HQ just off the M5, not many miles North of me. However, only full-time 37 hour roles were being pushed and IIRC, the salary was £27k. Frankly, IMHO they are not going to recruit the personnel they need as enquiry officers at that salary; arguably, it’s barely tolerable nowadays for the admin support posts behind these roles. I had always hoped for a “last career phase” in being a part-time FEO but not at those rates!

 

[Liveonce]

judicial review by a shooting organisation is required.

 

[Liveonce]

I had always hoped for a “last career phase” in being a part-time FEO but not at those rates!

In my experience they do not employ people from the gun industry or firearms owners, they look to be ex police or ex military, ex civil servants, ex customs etc unless others know different.

 

[wytonpjs]

In my experience they do not employ people from the gun industry or firearms owners, they look to be ex police or ex military, ex civil servants, ex customs etc unless others know different.

Fitting 2 of those categories was the rationale underpinning my interest…………..

 

[Cogswell & Harrison]

In my experience they do not employ people from the gun industry or firearms owners, they look to be ex police or ex military, ex civil servants, ex customs etc unless others know different.

Surely then that would be a valuable un-tapped resource. Lets face it, the history and lifestyles off all FAC holders must be known "thread to needle" by the authorities. I would be more than willing to assist.

 

[disco_ike]

@Conor O'Gorman one for your guys to pick up again it seems sadly.... Can they stop accepting?

 

[63]

Thanks all. To the points raised:

- Klenchblaize - I will write for exactly the reasons you raise, I am not naive enough to expect it to change anything but if we don't raise concerns there is no incentive to address the issue. There is no doubt that firearms licensing is often under-resourced because compared to other areas Police Seniors catch relatively little heat for poor performance there. I've worked with enough public sector bodies to know that it's mostly a case of shifting the puzzle pieces around so the gap is in the place that causes the least grief.

- 2LI, I didn't say there 1390 combined holders - I estimated there are that many FAC holders based on national statistics. Now it's the morning and I've had a coffee I've found the HO data and we're equally wrong. As at Mar 2023 there were 2,597 FACs on issue in Gloucestershire, and 10,194 SGC's.

What is more interesting though, is that last year Gloucestershire processed the following FAC's - 71 new, 494 Renewals, & 153 Variations. They also processed 248 SGC applications, and 1,571 SGC renewals.

Just focussing on renewals,

• 494 is 19% of the total number of FACs, which given they renew every 5 years is pretty much spot on, chimes with 2LI's experience and their stated focus on renewals.
• 1571 SGC renewals from 10,194 holders is 15.4%, which suggest an under-performance on SGC renewals, as you would broadly need to renew 20% of SGCs each year, give or take.

In terms of FAC grants

• Over the period 2008 - 2021 Gloucestershire granted, on average, 144 new FAC's a year. (pre Covid and pre-plymouth). There isn't a clear upward or downward trend over that period, so we can reasonably assume that demand from the public is probably about the same now as it was then, which suggests that they are probably delivering about 50% ish of the required number of FACs per year.
• If we assume that for FY 2020,2021 and 2022 applications levels were about the same, then based on grant numbers for FAC's Gloucestershire Police are probably sat on a backlog of about 261 FAC applications - it might be less if applications reduced during COVID etc, but I'd be surprised if it was much more.

So what? To your point that managing this service is 'hard', yes it is, and it's definitely fair to say that the workload is greater in terms of numbers and volume than most of us intuitively believe. It feels to all of us like it should only take a few weeks because each individual FAC application is fairly small, but there's a lot of them. I saw some interesting stats from TVP that when they did paper applications 80% of them had to be returned due to the applicant making a basic error or failing to fill in the whole form, so as a group it seems like shooters might not help ourselves.

HOWEVER, I think it is also absolutely fair to point out that this is one of the most predictable, stable and forecastable functions a Police Force provides. The workload is almost entirely predictable, and consists of a series of near-identical processes being repeatedly performed. I can't think of another function in Policing where it should be as easy to forecast resource requirements, plan accordingly, and develop really efficient processes, so however hard I squint at this I can't help but conclude it's a bit of a poor effort.

 

[Stalker62]

Gloucestershire Constabulary are in an 'unusual' position.

This year, both their Chief Constable, and their Deputy Chief Constable were suspended.

The new 'interim' Chief Constable Maggie Blyth, has been a Police Officer was seven years. She joined on the 'fast track' scheme, and came in at Superintendent. She was a senior Civil Servant prior to this. She is going to be busy...

 

[DVS1]

Surely then that would be a valuable un-tapped resource. Lets face it, the history and lifestyles off all FAC holders must be known "thread to needle" by the authorities. I would be more than willing to assist.

I offered my time free of charge to assist, whether that be paper pushing or any other task, that would free up other staff in the FLD.

That offer was simply ignored.

I fully appreciate that Data Protection & liability etc etc would put a spanner in such an offer but as said its a resource that may be able to be utilised.

 

[Stalker62]

I offered my time free of charge to assist, whether that be paper pushing or any other task, that would free up other staff in the FLD.

@DVS1

I did exactly the same with my local FLD.

Make the tea, stack the paper, fetch and carry - not bothered, just free up someone to crack on with the job.

The FLM was all for it. I said I would do one day a week.

It just became too difficult for H&S, Personnel Dept. Police "Policy" (fcuk knows) and it died on its arse.

Frustrating really.

 

[63]

Gloucestershire Constabulary are in an 'unusual' position.

This year, both their Chief Constable, and their Deputy Chief Constable were suspended.

The new 'interim' Chief Constable Maggie Blyth, has been a Police Officer was seven years. She joined on the 'fast track' scheme, and came in at Superintendent. She was a senior Civil Servant prior to this. She is going to be busy...

To be fair, that's not necessarily a bad thing. The Police approach to generating senior leadership via climbing through every single rank in the organisation has its flaws. Police senior leaders in my experience tend to be 'super cops' rather than strategic leaders, and don't always have the breadth of experience and perspective you'd want at that level. It doesn't follow that the skills that make you a good Constable or Sergeant will make you a good Senior, and potentially good senior officers get weeded out because they are a bit too thoughtful and diplomatic to succeed further down the chain.

I must say, when I read the old chief constables bio on their website last night my first thought was 'what a screamer'.