avon and somerset make flo's redundant

[the running man]

fellow members i draw your attention to the redundancies by april 2012 of all of avon and somerset firearms liasion officers, in future it will be farmed out to "uniform".ive heard from one dealer that arv unit crew members will be doing initial interveiews (hopefuly not armed)......the implications for avon and somerset taking a 20 year step backwards in their licensing procedure are not going to be conducive for standards being upheld........imagine you get the copper who does not agree with civvys having guns? what sort of report will go in? well i for one am now drafting a letter from myself to avon and somersets cheif constable voicing my concerns for this change................

[Tower75]

Agreed. Worrying news.

I know that I've heard on the "grapevine" that the FLOs here might be out soon too.

If one county gets rid, how long before they all follow?

[Dave 101]

So how do our busy and overworked police deal with taking on more work , what will the priority be , your FAC or solving crime or going for coffee at the wild bean cafe ?
As I understand it the armed police are discouraged from firearms as a personal sport so what will their knowledge and interest be in your collection of old military rifles , insert here your particular interest , It doesnt sound like it is a working idea to me to get rid of a whole dept which is probably overworked already and replace it with people who are at the sharp end of policing .
Remember this is a service we are paying for twice , local taxation and FAC / SGC fee , and theres rumours of it increasing to £200.00 for 5 years .
Will it happen or not or is scaremongering ?

Dave

[the running man]

I can tell you that all a&s have had redundancy notices.....its no work in progress.

[Dangermouse]

I would urge any one in that area to contact their shooting bodies to make representations and find out what is going on. The bodies should also make the Chief Constable aware of the service that is required and the depth of knowledge necessary to carry out this post. I would also wish to seek reassurances that no third parties will be involved and that the number of people having access to our records is not increased.

I suspect that those being made redundant will not be best happy, they may tell you what is going on should you give them a call - they have no reason to mislead you.

DM

[Mike357]

Some uniformed officers are checks in Tayside and from what I can gather they are a bit naive but pro shooting.

I believe Lyons is about to get his FAC SG after only 3 months ad an FAC holder. The young was all in favour of our PSG aspirations. Cool!