Things have definitely improved. My coterminous was done in good time. Here's the article from "Rural Times".
Hampshire constabulary’s Firearms Licensing Department currently manages 29,458certificates granted under the Firearms Act and Explosives Regulations, andover the past five years has consistently received an average of 1,347 new applications per year.
Unfortunately our performance had fallen over a number of years to a level that was well below the standard of service we wished to provide. In order to deal with this, and having carried out a detailed review, in December 2016 we implemented a new working model and drew up service level agreements (SLAs) for the move from paper files to an electronic system.
Thisleft us with a considerable backlog, to which we allocated small teams. The priority focus of this work was on the 973 outstanding grant applications, some of which dated back in excess of 12 months, as well as 688 changes of address, 285 other assorted pieces of work and a significant quantity of gun sale and transfer notifications. Firearms enquiry officers are arranging visits to deal with these.
Our SLA for the renewal of certificates states that they will be processed before expiry (currently one week prior) - provided we receive the application at least eight weeks prior to the due date, unless there are issues or concerns that require additional work or enquiries. The SLA for new grant applications states that we will complete the process within 12 weeks of receipt of theapplication – subject to issues requiring extra work.
TheSLA for visitor permits and European firearms passes is set at six weeks, basedon the Home Office guide, although in reality we are currently turning these round in a much shorter time. For all other areas of business, such as changes of address, sales and transfers of guns and variations, we undertake to completethese within as short a time as possible - subject to there being no issues that require additional work. As our cost recovery from fees is in the regionof 40 per cent, identifying additional public funding has been challenging. Wecarried out a detailed analysis of demand against resourcingand have secured funding to recruit sufficient additional staff. During this process, Chief Constable Olivia Pinkney and Police and Crime Commissioner Michael Lane have shown a strong desire to continue our improvement and have provided the necessary means to provide the level ofservice our customers deserve.
I would like to publicly thank my teams for theirhard work and dedication, which has resulted in our improved performance, thedelivery of which has not been easy. I also wish to thank our customers fortheir patience and understanding during this period of transition and we look forward to continuing to improve service delivery in the future.
TonyHill
Firearms andExplosives Licensing Manager
