Jay, I can accept the fact that you don't want there to be as many/ any, police helicopters.
The air ambulances are funded by charity (in England and Wales),because people are willing to put their hand in their pockets to do so. You seem very keen on the state running a tight ship and not wasting money, so surely this method of fundng is agreeable to you?
You may (or may not), be aware that air ambulance and HEMs work is regarded under ICAO rules, as a commercial operation. So police aviation beng a state run operation is not permitted to get too involved in it, we can carry out life saving CASEVAC flights, but that is about it.
With regard to the involvement of air ambulance aircraft in searching for missing persons, I think the limitations of air ambulances for that sort of work have been more than adequately explained, I would just add that the charitable organisations that run air ambulance operations very successfully are alway open to new ideas. I'm sure yours would be well received.
However, your point about other agencies assisting in searching for 'mispers' is actually a very good one. For example I have long thought that it might be a suitable area for the Fire Service to get involved in, i see more and more of their vehicles displaying a 'Fire and Recue' logo so it might be right up their street!
For what it's worth, quite a few years ago the police authority for which I worked, did give consideration to whether our air operations unit should evolve into an emergency services unit, with an ability to provide cover to all three of the inland emergency services, but the fact that we could not really participate in air ambulance work put paid to the idea before it was worth committing anything to paper!
I would just finish with a request. You have stated that you are not against police aviation, just the number of aircraft and some of the work we do. I would be interested to know what role you think police aviation should carry out (bearing in mind the point about us not competing in the air ambulance/HEMS market)?