Interesting read.We will have to see how this effects us all through the licencing process

[wisdom]

https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/plymouth-news/staggering-cost-firearms-licencing-taxpayers-6530478

[Walker570]

OK fine. Then simply give everyone a lifetime license with a proviso that they can be visited by a small number of officers per force on occasion to check they are legit.

Suits me fine.

[wisdom]

19 minutes ago, Walker570 said:

OK fine. Then simply give everyone a lifetime license with a proviso that they can be visited by a small number of officers per force on occasion to check they are legit.

Suits me fine.

Me too

[Fellside]

This is a reoccurring theme. It rears it’s ugly head from time to time. I would be more concerned if it were to gain national focus. 

[TIGHTCHOKE]

24 minutes ago, Fellside said:

This is a reoccurring theme. It rears it’s ugly head from time to time. I would be more concerned if it were to gain national focus. 

Yes indeed, if the public want firearms to be regulated they have to pay their share.

[bruno22rf]

Basically they are suggesting that if we paid more, some half witted FEO would not be so keen to return certificates to morons who hold guns. Would doubling the FEO's wage that returned the certificate of Jake Davison have prevented him doing so?, talk about passing the buck.

[clangerman]

if they are that worried about cost not giving a maniac firearms would have saved the price of endless services investigations and compensation claims that are yet to surface 

[HantsRob]

I'd be more interested to see a fairer breakdown.

What cost is to process new grants and renewals, then completely separately how much money is spent doing variations for FAC and gun buy/sell/swaps for SGC and FAC. I suspect the cost of the raw admin of looking at variations and transactions would be quite a chunk of the fee.

[Imperfection]

I remember having same conversation with my old FEO about this. He said that the fee should rise to cover the entire cost, but i said its the Police's responsibility to maintain public safety so they're liable for the full amount.

[Demonic69]

I'd love to know where the costs come from. How many staff do Cornwall pay for a £1.25mil bill? Aside from a bit of travel, stationary and IT costs we're paying for a bunch of lower wage admins to handle the paperwork and few higher paid officers to deal with visits and the oversight. Even with 10 well paid admins at £30k, plus 5 officers at £50k they'd be looking at £550k on salaries, then fuel etc. How does that add up to another £700k? Even paying a few officers extortionate wages doesn't increase it enough.

The maintenance of their IT systems should be split across the force, as well as the PND being split nationally.

So if they're going to throw such massive figures around I'd expect to see a fully costed breakdown before it starts to hit us more than it already has.

I'll not hold my breath.

[oowee]

4 hours ago, Demonic69 said:

I'd love to know where the costs come from. How many staff do Cornwall pay for a £1.25mil bill? Aside from a bit of travel, stationary and IT costs we're paying for a bunch of lower wage admins to handle the paperwork and few higher paid officers to deal with visits and the oversight. Even with 10 well paid admins at £30k, plus 5 officers at £50k they'd be looking at £550k on salaries, then fuel etc. How does that add up to another £700k? Even paying a few officers extortionate wages doesn't increase it enough.

The maintenance of their IT systems should be split across the force, as well as the PND being split nationally.

So if they're going to throw such massive figures around I'd expect to see a fully costed breakdown before it starts to hit us more than it already has.

I'll not hold my breath.

Offices, furniture, overheads, pensions, the list goes on. Not justifying the cost though. 

[Demonic69]

2 minutes ago, oowee said:

Offices, furniture, overheads, pensions, the list goes on. Not justifying the cost though. 

But how many of those would be specific to firearms licensing and not already covered by the budgets they get for central policing?

The NHS used a similar tactic a couple of years ago to deal with missed appointments. Citing a cost of £21k per appointment or similar. It was thoroughly debunked when the actual costs were investigated.

[oowee]

4 hours ago, Demonic69 said:

But how many of those would be specific to firearms licensing and not already covered by the budgets they get for central policing?

The NHS used a similar tactic a couple of years ago to deal with missed appointments. Citing a cost of £21k per appointment or similar. It was thoroughly debunked when the actual costs were investigated.

I dont know of the case you cite but when I was charged out my hourly rate was tripled to cover overheads. 

[Demonic69]

32 minutes ago, oowee said:

I dont know of the case you cite but when I was charged out my hourly rate was tripled to cover overheads. 

Was that for overheads already covered by the tax payer though?

[WalkedUp]

Are the costs of roads covered purely by road tax?

[Demonic69]

17 minutes ago, WalkedUp said:

Are the costs of roads covered purely by road tax?

Road tax doesn't pay for roads, it's an emissions tax that goes back into the pot, supposedly. The roads are paid for with council tax and general taxation.

[WalkedUp]

2 minutes ago, Demonic69 said:

Road tax doesn't pay for roads, it's an emissions tax that goes back into the pot, supposedly. The roads are paid for with council tax and general taxation.

Exactly! 

[Demonic69]

17 minutes ago, WalkedUp said:

Exactly! 

The DVLA gets funding from the DfT, so from tax payers also. I wonder if "they" would like their driving licenses etc to go up to full cost recovery? I don't think I would

[WalkedUp]

3 minutes ago, Demonic69 said:

The DVLA gets funding from the DfT, so from tax payers also. I wonder if "they" would like their driving licenses etc to go up to full cost recovery? I don't think I would

Agree 👍

[HantsRob]

On 03/02/2022 at 10:44, Demonic69 said:

I'd love to know where the costs come from. How many staff do Cornwall pay for a £1.25mil bill? Aside from a bit of travel, stationary and IT costs we're paying for a bunch of lower wage admins to handle the paperwork and few higher paid officers to deal with visits and the oversight. Even with 10 well paid admins at £30k, plus 5 officers at £50k they'd be looking at £550k on salaries, then fuel etc. How does that add up to another £700k? Even paying a few officers extortionate wages doesn't increase it enough.

Police officers don't do this licencing. 50k is also Inspector band, and inspectors are certainly not doing home visits. Also I can't think of a police staff role that pays 30k at admin level! 

To give some offset though, if you have 3 licencing officers and 2 managers, that's 5 cars you need to buy, plus overhead contribution to insurance, servicing, parts, labour etc. Police vehicles are exempt from road tax, as per all emergency service vehicles. Overhead of parking, office rent, and the cost of heating is going up! Oh then the tin of biscuits

There is a fair amount of overtime for some, due to meetings and panels etc, and when they travel nationally they need accommodation and subsistence. Whilst it sounds petty, hotels and fuel and hire cars if they don't have a personal issue one adds up. Then there's pension contributions, sickness, annual leave etc

Overheads are a tricky one, as you point out access to PNC could be seen as "free" as the force pays for it elsewhere, but there is a user licence cost regardless for extra users. Costs for IT are huge, licencing there again is expensive for an E1 or E3 licence, let alone hardware and support. The SCCM infrastructure, network, domain controllers etc. 

You can bend the figure either way, but there's a lot more cost to human resource than you think.

[Fellside]

The news piece above is nothing more than a political distraction from the unholy stink surrounding the Plymouth shootings and subsequent noise re the investigation. 

Further more, none of the figures stand up to close scrutiny. For example the newspaper reports in one paragraph that the annual licencing spend for D and C is £630,000 and in 2012 it was £1.25 million…..?! This is not exactly a third party (a la Price Waterhouse) concrete analysis. It is unverified and therefore uncertain….at best. 

One of the many unknowns which the local rag throws up - is the proportion of spend on 6,250 gun licence amendments vs renewals. In other words what is their primary spend. Should there be an extra cost for amendments….? More questions than answers. 

If there is one thing for sure, the national firearms licencing cost is a tiny fragment of the massive £21.49 billion spent on the UK’s police force last year. When you also consider £26 million per year is gained in speed camera fines alone (!!), this begs a whole other raft of questions and potentials. Licencing overheads (even with the best biscuits…..😁) becomes virtually irrelevant. 

It is easy to see that firearms licencing offers excellent value. It is extremely lean and very rarely goes wrong. However the ‘charge ‘em more’ argument is entirely political and can have no economic credibility whatsoever. Ramble ends.
 

P.S Stop making me think of biscuits……😁. 

[Demonic69]

22 minutes ago, HantsRob said:

Police officers don't do this licencing. 50k is also Inspector band, and inspectors are certainly not doing home visits. Also I can't think of a police staff role that pays 30k at admin level! 

To give some offset though, if you have 3 licencing officers and 2 managers, that's 5 cars you need to buy, plus overhead contribution to insurance, servicing, parts, labour etc. Police vehicles are exempt from road tax, as per all emergency service vehicles. Overhead of parking, office rent, and the cost of heating is going up! Oh then the tin of biscuits

There is a fair amount of overtime for some, due to meetings and panels etc, and when they travel nationally they need accommodation and subsistence. Whilst it sounds petty, hotels and fuel and hire cars if they don't have a personal issue one adds up. Then there's pension contributions, sickness, annual leave etc

Overheads are a tricky one, as you point out access to PNC could be seen as "free" as the force pays for it elsewhere, but there is a user licence cost regardless for extra users. Costs for IT are huge, licencing there again is expensive for an E1 or E3 licence, let alone hardware and support. The SCCM infrastructure, network, domain controllers etc. 

You can bend the figure either way, but there's a lot more cost to human resource than you think.

I've actually just done a Run cost for additional users on an existing network. Works out at £450 per user per month over 5 years. That includes hardware, tech refresh, evergreen, outsourced support, Windows, SCCM, Ivanti, E3 and other licenses plus a load of other fun stuff. This is as an out-sourcing company too, and some forces run theirs internally, so should be even cheaper! PNC is charged per-use apparently, wasn't that what ACPO were selling on, cost them 50p or similar and they charged their customers £6 or something?

No idea bout salaries for the staff though, I made wild assumptions based on the people I've interacted with. Do you reckon they're on more or less? Expenses do add up, we spend a fortune, but mis-management of expenses shouldn't fall onto the customer (us) and neither should overtime for what shouldn't be an overly complicated job. Although there may be more more to it than I realise, which is the reason a full-cost breakdown is essential before the mud starts flinging at shooters.

There's also aprrox £8million generated in renewals alone each year, with an upward variation of up to £2Milion for new grants. Not to mention they're taxpayer funded regardless and shooting is a £1bn boon to the economy.

[cardigun]

I'm getting confused !  Do the figures mean that we shooters pay £8 million a year for renewals, and the Police grumble about paying £30,000 ?

I'm not good with figures !

[Rewulf]

20 minutes ago, cardigun said:

I'm getting confused !  Do the figures mean that we shooters pay £8 million a year for renewals, and the Police grumble about paying £30,000 ?

No, the piece focus is on Devon and Cornwall licencing, the biggest in the country, and how it costs the taxpayer around £600,000 a year on average to administer it.
There is a good argument for the fact that this is all part of the polices responsibility to public safety, but this line will be the one touted for why licence fees WILL be going up.

The police source said: "When you consider how much people are willing to pay for the kit and the shooting experience, you wonder why there's such reluctance to pay the full shotgun and firearm licence fee. Why should the police - or rather the local council taxpayer - have to supplement their sport? It's not as if the police are expected help pay the cost of anyone else's sporting activities."

[Demonic69]

14 minutes ago, cardigun said:

I'm getting confused !  Do the figures mean that we shooters pay £8 million a year for renewals, and the Police grumble about paying £30,000 ?

I'm not good with figures !

We pay roughly £8mil nationally, but the forces reckon they spend £1.2mil each (At least Devon and Cornwall do)!

C&C's numbers say in 2012 it cost £1.25Mil in total, with £446,000 recovered in fees. Leaving an £800k Shortfall. That was before the last fee hike though. That would explain the later (earlier number in the article) number of £630k, an average of a 5 year shortfall.