A potentially interesting set of figures have been released to the East Anglia Daily Times giving the numbers for flight operations in Suffolk
prior to NPAS.
Suffolk: Police spend £1m a year on helicopter but spend is below budget - News - East Anglian Daily Times
The article includes a police statement that provides the crucial reasoning behind NPAS “The fixed costs of keeping a helicopter are a significant proportion of the annual costs, therefore the more use it gets, the less each flying hour costs.” but I suspect that string of words may have been put together by someone having a major stake in NPAS!