Firearms licence processing project success

In mid-2022, the authority ringfenced 5,701 aged applications into the Pipeline Reduction Project. A further 1,508 aged applications were then prioritised by district staff.

The authority says that, now, all 7,209 of those historical applications have been processed and resolved.

Meanwhile, the authority says it has managed to slash the average age of the applications it is working through and has overall halved the number of applications it is managing at a given time.

Authority executive director Angela Brazier says that in mid-2022 when the project began, the average age of an application was 222 days, or over seven months old.

“Today, the average age of an application is currently 70 days – under three months,” she says.

Brazier says the improvement in the licencing performance is more obvious when looking at the median age of all files on hand.

The median has fallen from 152 days in July 2022 to 41 days today.

“Finishing the Pipeline Reduction Project is an important milestone,” Brazier says.

“We recognise that the wait for firearms licence applications to be processed was too long, and the very real frustration this caused the licenced firearms community,” she says.

Several factors contributed to the delays, including a review of licencing processes in the wake of the 15 March Christchurch terror attack; Covid-19 preventing vetting staff from making visits to licence applicants; all combined with an increased demand for licences as many had expired around the same time.

“Getting on top of this backlog is a first step, and we hope a signal that under the authority’s firearms licencing systems will be more responsive and effective,” Brazier says.

Brazier says new and renewal licence applications are constantly flowing in, so there is never a moment you reach zero.

However, the service improvements made are making the overall workload more manageable.

At the time the Pipeline Reduction Project began in mid-2022, the authority had a total of 11,096 firearms licence applications for processing.

Today this application caseload had dropped to 5403 – an overall 51.3% reduction.

“In mid-2022 around 71% of the applications waiting to be processed were at least 90 days old. We’ve really turned that picture on its head. Today, 81% of all applications in the system are under 90 days old. By the end of this year, I want this number to be 100%,” she says