.... it looks like that (as I was told) "flying to burn off hours" has to stop, in fact reining in hours is what I seemed to be getting from him.
At the moment, if a force doesn't fly off the annual hours it has paid for it won't receive a refund. In which case burning off the hours, for want of a better phrase, is the only way of getting a return for your money. Of course reigning in the hours makes financial sense if you haven't already paid for them and it still stands that the clear and obvious way to save money in this business is to reduce flying hours in the first place.
Drones are all well and good, especially for those thermals, but as most of us know thermal jobs are done on the back of other jobs. However, when the thermals mount up and flights occur purely to reduce that list, many more jobs are attended .... in particular crime type jobs, the type drones would be no use whatsoever on. In addition, if drones are used for purely drone type jobs, results when the doors are knocked would dramatically fall.
It's not unheard of to launch for an hour on a few thermals and up with an unrelated 6 collars from crime on the wheel ... just like the good old days
Can someone please confirm the cost of a phone ping, I'd like to compare it to the proposed £1600/hr for a helicopter deployment.
It may be a rumour, but in a recent survey, 85% of NPAS employees came up with the same method of saving £1 million a year
