As everyone will agree, this one will run and run. Let me just re-emphasise a couple of things:
The civvy thing is all about saving money. Let us assume that a civvy on special shft allowance and danger pay and responsbility alloowance and ... costs less to employ than a PC plod [there really is very little difference when you add all these thinsg up]. As others have said, a PC has experience that will from time to time make a difference in how he does a job,when comared with a civvy. Operating an ASU is expensive not because of PC salaries (or even those of the pilots) but because of the cost of running a twin engine all singing dancing money shredding machine. If you want to put your experienced PCs anywhere, better to influence the use of such a multi-million pound piece of kit than operate a computer entering data, issue forms every time they talk to a mmeber of the public, ride a bicycle or even handle a police dog. Not having police officer knowledge and thought processes controlling a police heli can waste a fortune.
The other thing that always seems important to me, is that the aircraft has to work with and to some extent control or influence their police colleagues on the ground. This will be a lot more difficult if "they down there" think that "them up there" aren't even PCs and therefore don't know what they are doing. It is essential that police officers on the ground consider those in the air to be part of the same team. If not, the hele is a waste of money.