{"id":50860,"date":"2014-11-27T17:31:52","date_gmt":"2014-11-27T17:31:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=4f9ca3a0b34e2cf756cdd003df502448"},"modified":"2014-11-27T17:31:52","modified_gmt":"2014-11-27T17:31:52","slug":"news-story-consultation-launched-on-raising-firearms-licence-fees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=50860","title":{"rendered":"News story: Consultation launched on raising firearms licence fees"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>The Home Office has today announced plans to increase the cost of firearms licensing fees.<\/p>\n<p>The proposal would allow police forces to cover the cost of running the firearms licensing service once eCommerce, an online system currently being developed by the police, becomes operational.<\/p>\n<p>According to police estimates, forces currently recoup only 27% of the cost of issuing licences, which is unsustainable in the long term.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"efficient-and-consistent\">Efficient and consistent<\/h2>\n<p>A four-week <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/consultations\/a-proposal-to-increase-firearms-licensing-fees-administered-by-the-police\">public consultation<\/a> on the proposal, which is aimed at creating a more efficient and consistent service, was launched today.<\/p>\n<p>Minister for Crime Prevention Lynne Featherstone said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>This public consultation represents an important step forward in improving the licensing regime as a whole.<\/p>\n<p>The UK has some of the toughest gun laws in the world and as part of this it is important that the government keeps the firearms licensing system under review.<\/p>\n<p class=\"last-child\">It is clearly unsustainable for the police to be recouping only 27% of the cost of licensing fees and these proposals will improve the way the system works for both licence holders and police forces.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Firearms licensing fees have not been increased since 2001. The current fee levied is \u00a350 for a grant of a firearm and shotgun certificate and \u00a340 for a renewal. If agreed, the new fees will increase to \u00a388 for the grant of a firearm certificate and \u00a379.50 for the grant of a shotgun certificate. The cost of a renewal will increase to \u00a349 for a shotgun certificate and \u00a362 for a firearms certificate.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"prior-consultation\">Prior consultation<\/h2>\n<p>The public consultation has been launched after prior consultation with relevant parties, including police representatives and the shooting community.<\/p>\n<p>The consultation will also ask for responses on how the subsequent review process for firearms fees should be taken forward.<\/p>\n<p>The consultation will run from 27 November until 29 December.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Proposals aimed at creating more efficient and consistent service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50860"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50860\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}