Wasteful system

bmmb88

Recently I had to submit a license substitution. It annoyed me that I had to fill in all the same details as the original application and I also have to do this for each firearm at renewal time.
It got me thinking about how much paper is used and how much time is spent by AGS on licenses.


So a quick calculation later we have the following


187,445 licenses as of 1st Jan 2019
9 sheets of A4 paper per license is 1,687,005 sheets
That’s 3,374 reams of paper (500 per ream)
2.58kg per ream is 8,705 kg
That’s 8.705 tonnes or 9.6 tons
That’s not including extra sheets for photocopying
a) license or passport
b) club membership card
c) extra info you may need to include
d) landowners’ details
187,445 id photos
Then there is the envelope you put the application into.
The letter and envelope used to say that AGS have received your application
The grant letter and envelope
The license and envelope
That’s 749,780 envelopes
And 562,335 letters from AGS
AGS resources
Public desk to receive the application.
FO reads the application
Application sent to district office
Superintendent reads application
Or
Chief Superintendent reads it
Decision is made and application filled in by AGS
Enter details into Pulse.
Say 2 hours off hand for all that for each application
That’s 374,890 hours, not including if you need to meet any one of them for some reason.
That’s over a 3-year renewal cycle
Does not include new applications, substitutions, alterations for change of address etc.

Does this qualify as a wasteful system.

In case anyone says its easy to criticize and not come up with a possible solution I've thought of one as well (too much time on my hands).
It involves technology and is something I think that could implemented
but I'm no computer nerd, I work in construction:D


Please feel free to come up with your own figures if I have forgotten something or made a mistake somewhere

BattleCorp

Don't forget the sizeable number of us who have had to submit our paperwork twice due to stuff 'getting lost'.

Ubbquittious

I suppose the easiest saving would be to do away with all the sheets for the renewal. Send people a reminder text slightly before the renewal thing saying they can renew if no details changed and include a link to some online payment site. If they don't pay the renewal on there they still get the ream of paper sent out to them.

oldgit1897

You can do so much now online, why not renewals or applications ? With a method of doing it by paper for people without internet, or people without computer skills, older people for instance. Borrow elements of the UK and German systems, eg. One certificate with all your guns on it, and a centralised civilian staffed office that does all the paperwork. The guards would only provide a background and criminal record check.

The thing is a lot of state employee's don't want to do the work, and don't want anyone else to do it either.

Sparks

oldgit1897 wrote: »

One certificate with all your guns on it, and a centralised civilian staffed office that does all the paperwork.

Those two would require large scale rewrites of the Firearms Act that we've been asking for for 20 years and nobody is willing to grant so far.
Also, modifying the Firearms Act when the smell of an election is in the air and every backbencher looking to get into the papers is sortof like juggling with chainsaws - looks impressive, is very noisy, rarely accomplishes much beyond the spectacle and there is never, ever, "just one mistake" - the minute even one thing goes wrong, it's always just the begining of a bad day.

oldgit1897

Sparks wrote: »

Those two would require large scale rewrites of the Firearms Act that we've been asking for for 20 years and nobody is willing to grant so far.
Also, modifying the Firearms Act when the smell of an election is in the air and every backbencher looking to get into the papers is sortof like juggling with chainsaws - looks impressive, is very noisy, rarely accomplishes much beyond the spectacle and there is never, ever, "just one mistake" - the minute even one thing goes wrong, it's always just the begining of a bad day.

I doubt anything will ever happen, it just daydreaming and wishful thinking.