Gun certificates (589A/23)
Request
1.- How many gun certificates issued by your force are currently in effect?
2.- How many new certificates have been approved in the past 12 months (from today, April 5)?
3.- How many applications have been rejected in the past year?
4.- How many have been revoked, and could I please have a breakdown of the reasons?
5.- How many times have gun(s) been taken off someone and subsequently returned in the past year?
6.- How many cases are you aware of where someone with a gun certificate has committed, or is alleged to have committed, a firearm offence in the past year?
7.- How many cases are you aware of where someone with a gun certificate has committed, or is alleged to have committed, any other type of offence in the past year?
Response
Please be advised that the information that you have requested is not available in a readily retrievable format. In relation to Question 6 and Question 7, We have many suitability reviews, prosecutions and surrenders/revocations involving certificates holders coming to police notice.
Therefore, to locate and retrieve this information would require a search of multiple systems and a cross reference exercise performed to provide the information for these questions. Each question has 120 files that would need to be reviewed.
Please see below as to how long this would take to fulfil your request for information, this is in addition to the time already spent locating and retrieving information for the other parts of your request.
Therefore, the cost of providing you with the information is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for this part of the request and if one part of a request exceeds the fees limit then S12 of the Act applies to the whole request
However, in accordance with Section 16 of the Act I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in relation to your request and can provide information in relation to Question1 to 5. Please see this data below
1.How many gun certificates issued by your force are currently in effect?
Firearms 1815
Shotguns 7571
2.How many new certificates have been approved in the past 12 months (from today, April 5)?
298
3.- How many applications have been rejected in the past year?
17
4.- How many have been revoked, and could I please have a breakdown of the reasons?
16 (all under section 30 of the Firearms Act, risk to public safety and the peace)
5.- How many times have gun(s) been taken off someone and subsequently returned in the past year?
5
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