England and Wales’s firearms licensing system is “not fit for purpose” and should be replaced by a single national authority, the policing inspectorate has concluded. Its report, published on 28 August 2026, found long and uneven waits for certificate holders and inconsistent checks between police forces. The report was an item at the Sussex police and crime commissioner’s performance and accountability meeting on 15 October, where Assistant Chief Constable Steve Rayland and the commissioner, Katy Bourne, are listed as the speakers.
Report. An inspection of firearms licensing across police forces in England and Wales, by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS).
Published. 28 August 2026, with 23 recommendations.
Main call. A new national firearms licensing authority to replace the 38 firearms and explosives licensing units (FELUs) now run by police forces.
Sussex angle. The report anonymises each force’s figures, so it does not say how quickly Sussex Police decides applications.
What the inspectors found
The inspectorate’s summary says unclear guidance and legislation, combined with poor supervision and oversight, are creating inconsistencies and risks to public safety, and what it calls a postcode lottery in scrutiny, service and processing times. It says the legal framework is spread across more than 30 pieces of legislation, that guidance is fragmented, that training for licensing decision makers is inconsistent and often absent, and that suitability checks vary significantly between and within units.
HM Inspector of Constabulary Lee Freeman said most of the nearly 500,000 certificate holders use their firearms and shotguns responsibly for lawful recreation or work, but face a postcode lottery in the service they receive. The inspectorate says shootings involving legally held firearms led to the murder of at least 39 people in the ten years to March 2025.
The work began after the Home Secretary asked for a review of Devon and Cornwall Police’s licensing unit following the inquests into the 2021 Keyham shootings in Plymouth, and the inspectorate widened it into a national inspection. Parts of the full report were left out of the public version because the inspectors said they covered operational matters unsuitable for publication.
How long people wait
The inspectorate published a table of median processing times for the year to 31 March 2025, with each force anonymised. The national median was 57 days. The quickest unit had a median of 14 days and the slowest 163 days. The report says it found no relationship between how well a unit was resourced and how quickly it processed applications.
The inspectors also surveyed certificate holders. About 54 per cent of respondents said their licence took less than four months, and 53 per cent were satisfied with how long the process took. The report says delays beyond six months affected more than a quarter of respondents, with 16 per cent reporting a wait of between six and twelve months and 10 per cent waiting more than a year. Satisfaction with timeliness fell from 70 per cent when applications were completed within six months to 9 per cent when they took longer.
The inspectors say undue delay should be avoided, but not at the expense of thorough and consistent checks. They found one unit had shortened the period it looked back over to manage backlog pressures, which they said put demand ahead of risk, and another that had built up a backlog of 2,190 unanswered emails. The report does not name either unit.
What the inspectors want changed
Alongside the national authority, which would combine local staff doing suitability visits with a single national structure, the inspectorate recommends:
Medical checks. An in-person medical assessment for every firearm and shotgun applicant, rather than relying only on written records.
Competence. A standardised assessment of competence for applicants.
One set of rules. Aligning the rules for firearms such as rifles and for shotguns, which are currently regulated differently.
Digital verification. A system similar to the QR codes on driving licences, to reduce the risk of forged certificates being used to buy firearms.
Fees. Fees that rise at least in line with inflation, and no refund of the fee when an application is refused. The report says fees were raised in 2025 and again in June 2026, that forces welcomed the increases, and that many told inspectors the fees still do not cover all their licensing costs.
The report also draws on the domestic homicide review into the 2020 shootings at Woodmancote in Sussex, which identified non-disclosure and dishonesty as important risk factors and recommended that licensing units refuse or revoke rather than issue warning letters where information suggests dishonesty or risk.
The Sussex meeting
The commissioner’s agenda for 15 October lists the inspection report as an item, with Rayland and Bourne speaking. The item starts a few minutes into the video of the meeting. The meeting is published as video only, so we are not reporting what was said or any Sussex licensing figures. We will add them if a written record is published. The next meeting is on 19 November 2026.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council publishes force-by-force licensing performance data each quarter, which is where Sussex’s own timeliness figures can be found. We could not open that data when preparing this report, so check the council’s site for the latest quarter.
What happens next
The inspectorate has asked chief constables to put governance and engagement plans in place by 1 December 2026, and the Home Office to consider a national licensing tribunal by September 2029. Creating a national authority would need the government to act, and we have not seen a decision from ministers.
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