What we have is not a “Rolls Royce system” – if we did, there would have been a National Police Air Support Unit founded many years ago. It would have a fleet of a common aircraft type, fully role equipped – including NVG compatibility, including spare airframes that could be deployed either as maintenance reserves or where extra cover was required 24/7/365. There would have been a national training centre for pilots and observers, a national pool of pilots and observers and a National Police Aviation Maintenance Centre. This would have benefited from economy of scale, a single PAOC, less management, more flexibility, commonality, greater coverage and capability and been far more cost effective than the piecemeal system that has grown up in the last 20 years.
(And then I woke up).
What we actually have now is probably the cheapest possible solution that remains legal in accordance with current CAA requirements for both operations and maintenance - and that, in the “real world” means Public Transport, Performance Category A, Twin Engine etc, etc. There are savings to be made in becoming a National Police Air Support Unit but not by reducing the number of aircraft or by moving to bases that do not yet exist. As has been pointed out elsewhere on this thread, you can’t generate more electricity by knocking down power stations.
If our “broken economy” cannot afford what it has and the regulators will not change the requirements then our “broken economy” will soon find out the value of what it had as opposed to the cost of it.