TC the man's contact details should be a matter of public record.... somewhere in the depths of the web site for the Association of Police Authorities there will be a contact point.
...
The real reason I came to put in my pennyworth is a potential testing point for the future. A testing point for the police service in general, potentially NPAS and most certainly the politicians that have in one way or another driven the form of NPAS and the police of today.
In June there is to be a G8 in Ireland that will severely strain PSNI.
Because of earlier politically motivated cuts they are already down on numbers [RUC 8,500 and PSNI 7,000] and there is a shortfall in numbers available for the safe running of the G8. Last time in Scotland there was a need for 10,000 pairs of feet on the street - and with the best will in the world NI is not Scotland.
It is said that PSNI could do with more aircraft on a day to day basis but there are none yet evident. Thats why they lease in the ex-D&C BK117. A shortfall in G8 capability could be placed at the feet of air support.
There is a ready source of role equipped spare airframes with NPAS [even though PSNI has no real relationship with NPAS] and it will be interesting to judge whether some of those spares will migrate to Belfast for a week [with the pilots and officers being enticed with bags of gold] and whether there are 3,000 [unarmed] mainland officers left with the will to put their lives on the line for those few dollars more....
In my time I would go anywhere for a couple of hundred extra in the bin at the end of the month .... but I am not so sure that I would ever have gone that far....