As far as I know, and according to my understanding of the Firearms Act, it's MY responsibility to "prevent unauthorised access to" my gun(s) It has never been the FEO's responsibility.
Therefore why do they need to do home visits? Whilst I accept that home visits may be useful or even required in some circumstances, particularly for first time applicants, but surely they are not needed in every case, as seems to be being implied.
In fact my last renewal went through via a telephone interview, carried out by an "office worker" ie not a (presumably more expensive) FEO.
My guess is that Gill Marshall-Andrews has applied the same estimating skills to detemine their actual costs in the provision the service as she did by assuming we are all spending a grand each time we go out! - ie worse case scenario.
She's clearly a politician of the "let's not let facts get in the way of me being able to "prove" my point" variety.