Frameworks
Police Air Support related Frameworks have been extended in the past but there will still need to be a review of the prices which could well be a non-trivial task. The quasi-monoploy status that the Frameworks offer the contractor in some cases can be justified for say the few years of the their normal lives .... but as the contracts enter extensions, the commercial elastic is getting quite stretched.
For NPIA the question will be the balance of work of re-negogiation of prices beyond the contracts normal lengths and of setting up new Frameworks (which seems unlikely).
If NPAs is to emerge, the transition to an NPAS model is going to take several years. In this period there will be need for maintenance, pilotage and insurance and the question I would ask is whether it is commercially wise to countenance the extending contracts and then extending extensions....?
It is worth noting that during the lives of the recent Frameworks, we have seen a Global Financial Crisis, a new Government and a radical new version of the old ACPO Air Support Strategy - NPAS - so I think it is hard to argue commercially that the underlying bases of the current Frameworks are as they were when originally bid.