I'm genuinely surprised - despite the horror stories, the firearms licensing people I've dealt with have seemed reasonably competent and had a decent enough working knowledge of firearms, licensing and the law.The only national training course for FEOs I am aware of is that known as the “Dorset course”. Of the 239 FEOs, only 89 had done a nationally recognised course, though this figure includes explosive licensing courses as well as the Dorset course. Seventy-six FEOs had been trained in-house and the largest number, 96, had learned on the job while some had undergone more than one type of training. It seems that Durham is not alone in having insufficiently trained FEOs.
I suppose the danger in calling for standardised national training is that the police will immediately twist that into a justification for raising fees.
