Durham FAC renewal time

[Sim G]

It might be worse than you think, Mark! Give Jon a call. His renewal is in with Durham and he's heard from elsewhere that renewals are taking a year!!!

[Blackstuff]

That was from me!

[Dark Skies]

For once I seem to have 'lucked out', as the Americans say.
My certificate was due to expire in April 2020 but I took the offer in 2019 to renew my FAC and SGC earlier to help TVP stagger their administrative plight. I was skeptical that it would make any difference but there were rumblings of expecting my GP to provide some sort of a health passport and an expensive fee to boot in yet another pointless wheeze.

Given that TVP's firearm dept website specifically said (2020) they weren't taking any more new certificate applications (leading me to suspect that a surge of applications will wipe out any good that early renewals might have made) I'm glad to have dodged that sh1tstorm.

It's basic deta entry and administration of a pretty damn small section of a pretty damn small section of the population across the UK. You'd think it'd be easy to run smooth as clockwork.

[phaedra1106]

Thanks Mark, not good news at all then

As I said on the 1st page of the thread, Durham were (once again) in the bottom 3 performing forces in December 2019 and were the force with the highest degradation of service throughout 2020.

[jan8p]

Well with my OWA cheque arriving and promptly burning a hole in my pocket I rang Durham FLD to check on the progress of my renewal as my extra 8 weeks runs out at the start of April and I still haven't had a visit/phone interview.

I was told in no uncertain terms that it would not be done before then and could expect a S7 permit. Apparently they are still dealing with renewals that were put in a year ago......

Complaint to the PCC and CC incoming!!!

Might as well jump into this thread as my first post....

I've got my SGC grant in with Durham (start of Dec) and have been chasing it every month or so. Current status is that it's at background check stage and that it might be "some time".

In fairness, the start of the application was very efficient, and indeed the guys in the department are very helpful and, ironically, efficient at what they were doing. Emails answered quickly, they even contacted my referee the day after (!) I submitted my application, my GP within a week, so that was all very pleasant. It seems to be background checks where all the delays are, and I am surmising that it is volume & staff shortages in this area causing it, as it won't be the admin staff in the firearms licensing department doing these.

I'm not going to take it lying down though, we're paying for a service, and indeed fulfillment of their statutory obligation, so them saying it'll be "some time" and making no efforts to improve their timescales isn't acceptable to me.

I've already written a draft complaint to the PCC but I've held off sending it until my application has passed the "average" grant timescales (3 months ish I think), as I do understand that Covid, etc, will have had some impact, but I'm not going to let them use it as an excuse to impose ridiculous timescales on a simple grant.

Let me know if you're sending yours to the PCC and I will send mine at the same time.

[dodgyrog]

The Chief Constable AND the PCC both ignored my formal complaint and failed to even acknowledge it!

[Blackstuff]

Let me know if you're sending yours to the PCC and I will send mine at the same time.

I've sent it this afternoon. Mainly just asking why Northumbria, Cumbria and North Yorks can manage to operate normally with CV19 restrictions, but they can't.

Given the info provided on here, i don't expect much to be done

[jan8p]

Also some irony that the national lead for Firearms Licensing is the DCC at Durham, seemingly one of the worst performing forces!

[dromia]

Bit of an echo in this thread.

[dodgyrog]

I just had a phone call from Durham Firearms.
They blame Covid for the delay and will be issuing a temporary certificate.