Back in July of last year, Coconutty said:
It think it will be VERY interesting to find out, once everyone has joined NPAS,
by way of Freedom of Interest Requests, just how much each force is paying for NPAS,
and for how many hours cover, and compare this with what was being paid and the hours flown pre-NPAS
Having now retired, I offer these figures, obtained by Freedom Of Information(FOI) requests.
Some things that stand out from the pre NWAOG/NPAS budgets are GMP’s relatively low costs and North Wales’ extraordinarily high budget, especially compared to Lancs who had the same number of budgeted hours. I wonder what’s changed so remarkably that they’ve managed to save £600000 with NPAS? Still, I expect the North Wales Council Tax payers are happy with the savings.
Total savings for the North West are £M1.22, some 0.08% of the total 2012/2013 North West Police budget. You could add another £730000 saving a year for Merseyside if the lease of their old aircraft is taken into account.
In the period 2010-2011, Merseyside and Lancs overflew their budgeted hours with the others just under theirs.
In the first 6-9months of the NWAOG, there was a sharp drop in hours flown/incidents attended across the board of about 30%. This was, sort of, understandable for Merseyside, having lost their aircraft, but seemed strange for the others where nothing much had changed apart from how aircraft were tasked. Anecdotal evidence suggested that Merseyside bobbies were deciding that it wasn’t worth asking for an aircraft, as it was taking too long to get a response. Perhaps that was the same for the other forces.
When Merseyside was asked if they were aware of this, and were they happy, they replied that they were as the aircraft wasn’t going to tasks that weren’t worthwhile. Well, if the various FIMs, CIMs, duty Supt/Insp/Sgts etc had taken our advice in the past, then we wouldn’t have gone to tasks that weren’t worthwhile! Of course, NPAS has stopped all that, haven't they?
As you can see, in 2012-2013 only GMP and Cheshire reached and in fact passed their budgeted hours. GMP probably because of Op Chess, and Cheshire probably because they now have access to Air Support for 24 hours a day. The others are continuing the trend that started with the NWAOG when hours flown in support of and incidents attended were down by around 30%. However, for the year 2013-2014, upto October 2013, all were on track to achieve the hours. Remember that’s hours flown in support of each force, not the hours flown by each aircraft.
So, as they say; they are lies, damned lies and statistics, and people will make what they will from statistics. You can make from them what you will.
Regards,
MG(Retired)