snowyhog Posted March 5, 2008 Report Share Posted March 5, 2008 I have just had a visit from the firearms officer for Kent Police !! he approved my cabinet ,etc . He said that he has been told to say 5-6 weeks wait after the visit . I first applied in early January . A person at Maidstone HQ has said ,to a friend that they are clearing Octobers at the moment . The whole situation in this day and age with computor aid is depressing !!especially when you really want to get out shooting . Has anyone on here recently received theirs in the Kent area ?? I believe renewals and change of address are also backlogged . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
76Lincoln Posted March 5, 2008 Report Share Posted March 5, 2008 i had a 7 month wait, in 2006 for my sgc, issued by psni, also awaiting a variation on my license now for 2 months and counting, not in kent area but feel the whole process should be a helluva bit quicker with database's and internet etc!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big_Sam Posted March 5, 2008 Report Share Posted March 5, 2008 I am having trouble finding the numbers, but in Scotland, Northern Police has the largest number of firearms to license, yet is pretty much the quickest force. Standard time is 4 weeks. If they can do it, I don't see why down south they should not be able to do it. Annoying isn't it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bradders Posted March 5, 2008 Report Share Posted March 5, 2008 Waited 5 monts from appliaction going in through to FAC arriving, and I already had a SGC (not that that made much difference). Came throught Dec 2007. Where abouts in Kent are you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter De La Mare Posted March 5, 2008 Report Share Posted March 5, 2008 Metropolitan Police did mine in double quick time, around 3 weeks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eagleye Posted March 5, 2008 Report Share Posted March 5, 2008 The boy applied to kent police last year end of may didnt get it till end of october 5 months good or bad I dont know Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wookie Posted March 5, 2008 Report Share Posted March 5, 2008 Cambridgeshire have just quoted me 10 working days to get my FAC grant processed. However, they work off six weeks from start to finish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowyhog Posted March 5, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2008 Thanks for all the feedback !! up to 6 weeks is a lot of difference to 5 months when its a national system in operation . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hubbertspeak Posted March 5, 2008 Report Share Posted March 5, 2008 Mine took such a long time, I can't remember when I sent it off, but it must have been around June. It finally arrived on 24th November. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lurcherboy Posted March 5, 2008 Report Share Posted March 5, 2008 I have just had a visit from the firearms officer for Kent Police !! he approved my cabinet ,etc .He said that he has been told to say 5-6 weeks wait after the visit . I first applied in early January . A person at Maidstone HQ has said ,to a friend that they are clearing Octobers at the moment . The whole situation in this day and age with computor aid is depressing !!especially when you really want to get out shooting . Has anyone on here recently received theirs in the Kent area ?? I believe renewals and change of address are also backlogged . Due to my inadequacies last year I waited about 6 months for my SGC renewal. LB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cranfield Posted March 5, 2008 Report Share Posted March 5, 2008 I was not at all inadequate, but still waited 12 weeks in 2007 for my renewal to come through. However, I spoke to my FLO at the end of last week on another matter and he said they had cleared a lot of the backlog and were within 1 - 2 months now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fortune Posted March 5, 2008 Report Share Posted March 5, 2008 A friend of mine renewed his pt 1 which ran out last June and got his new cert end of Jan 08. Currently I am waiting on a one for one swap over on my pt 1. I advised them of the transfer details at the time in writing and I was advised by the local feo to hold onto my cert until contacted by him. The reason given was that if I sent it in the cert would sit in the pile until it came to the top and then it would be sent out to him in the internal post. In the meantime I would not have my cert to buy ammo or dispose of any weapons ECT. I spoke to someone at Kent HQ firearms dept and they told me that there were several reasons for the delay. Firstly -- there is a new national reg system that has a lot of bugs in it. Second – This year is a big year for renewals and thirdly some experienced staff have left or retired and new staff are having to be trained on the new system. However this is not really of any interest to me and I find it incredible that the authorities have the gall to set into operation a new system without the ability to deliver a product on time and within budget. As for me I was told to send an Email into a certain person to ask if my paperwork could be sent out to the feo so that it could be sorted out, as it was an easy one to deal with. This I did and nothing has happened as far as I know. What gets me is the total contempt that we >> the paying public are just dismissed like we don’t matter. If the licensing department were in competition then they would be out of business with such a poor service. I’ve been told that I could have to wait up to six months for my one for one swap to be processed. And this also was from an feo in the Kent area >> Last week !! So who knows what the truth is What if anything are the shooting organizations doing about this. Are they giving the police authorities gyp about this? If so I haven’t seen anything about this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big_Sam Posted March 5, 2008 Report Share Posted March 5, 2008 After a careful study of the procedures that they have to go through to renew, I will concede that 10 working days would be good service. But surely they are clever enough to realise that having a backlog is slowing them down more than us? They are making life hard for themselves than if they were efficient! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dunganick Posted March 6, 2008 Report Share Posted March 6, 2008 dad has litterally just waited 6 months for a FAC/SGC renewal I waited 9 months for a FAC/SGC application about 3 yrs ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big_Sam Posted March 6, 2008 Report Share Posted March 6, 2008 I'm amazed that after 10 years the national firearms database is not running properly, well having said that its not really surprising since it is probably only designed to run on Windows 95..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clayman Posted March 6, 2008 Report Share Posted March 6, 2008 There are two big reasons for delays in the processing of FACs. One is that certs went from 3yr to 5yr a while back, and that created a two year low followed by a three year high renewal cycle. We are in a three yr cycle now and without recruiting more FEO's the process slowly slips, and is caught up again when the two year lull comes in. The other is the introduction of national licensing records. The counties used to hold the records locally, with quick access, but now everything is uploaded / downloaded from a National resource. Unfortunately, the secure pipeline in place does not have the bandwidth to support the speed the Firearms Licensing Offices have been used to, and this is slowing the whole process down too. Only more staff and better hardware will speed things up, and with cuts and budgets all round, neither is likely to happen soon. Clayman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pazuz Posted March 7, 2008 Report Share Posted March 7, 2008 I've just had a change of address with Kent Police. It took 4 months before the paperwork was passed to the FEO, he saw me within a few days, and then about a month for the new certs to arrive after he sent them back. I believe everything else is around the 5-6 month mark although a friend recently waited nearer 8 months for his FAC/SGC application. Cheers, Phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter De La Mare Posted March 7, 2008 Report Share Posted March 7, 2008 Makes a change for it to be an advantage to live in London then after hearing how long it can take. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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