Shotgun licence work is a huge undertaking

IT was reported in the news that more than half a million shotgun licences are issued each year in the UK.

It has also been reported that the Government is considering including a review of each applicant’s social media usage as part of the licence approval process.

Given the wide and growing diversity of today’s social media platforms, and even assuming the providers of these services gave the Government’s agents free and immediate access to their customers’ accounts (this is unlikely without a fight, but stranger things have happened in the past year or so), I would suggest that a worthwhile search is going to require at least two hours of effort for each application.

Now let’s assume that the work is not offshored to the Far East, and reckoning minimum wage plus the usual rule-of thumb allowances for overheads, management costs, etc. this will add some £40-£50 to the cost of each licence – presumably to be borne by the applicant.

It will also require a million hours of effort per annum – so if we reckon a 40-hour week and 50 working weeks in a year, that amounts to 500 people working full time trawling social media in support of shotgun licence applications – plus, of course, all of the support infrastructure needed to back up these front-line workers. Then, of course, an appeals procedure will be needed in support of those people who feel that they have been unfairly refused a licence – more manpower and expense. And this time it definitely cannot be offshored.

These numbers suggest to me the Government will decide that the only viable way of being seen to do what they are considering will be some kind of automated process, using artificial intelligence to highlight applications that appear to require further consideration.

Making such a system comprehensive and foolproof, and then keeping it up to date will be a major challenge and require ongoing expenditure.

I wish them luck and every success in this venture – but suggest that maybe we, the public, should not expect too much too soon – this will be a massive undertaking.

Paul Gribbin, Derby