Sorry, MG, missed your reply:
Thanks for that.
as a result of the terrorist attacks, calls for service had been declined.
Hmm...I wonder why?
Oh no, they're going on a
journey!!
OD advised this would be the first of regular updates in terms of NPAS’ journey to a fleet replacement
TC said: The feeling I get is that other members of the panel are still unhappy about air support when they need it (or lack thereof).
From an email from a Midland Force to me:
They aren’t particularly happy with what they are getting, and sent me a copy of one of their 6 monthly reports, on NPAS support, that the Force sends to the PCC.
Some of their figures are interesting/depressing. In the year to date(Report dated 28th November. Not sure if the year is from January or April)as a percentage of total calls, they had an attendance rate of 27.4% (38% 2014/15), a decline rate of 17.4% (11.6% 2014/15) and a cancellation rate of 44.8% (40.8% 2014/15). The cancellation rate represents where they have requested NPAS but subsequently cancelled them, often due to the incident being resolved or a change in circumstances.
Only 27 out of 100 times did an aircraft turn up.
Their average number of monthly requests for January to September 2016 was 53, a 61% reduction compared to an average of 135 for April to December 2015.
Attendance times for priority one, from request received to arriving on scene have increased from an average of 18.6 minutes to 20.53 minutes, and for priority two, have increased from an average of 25 minutes for April to December 2015 to 43 minutes for January to September 2016. Outrageous!(my word)
They have reduced their requests significantly by over 60% yet they have seen a less than satisfactory service provision with only 27.4 % of requests resulting in deployment of NPAS.
At worst the average overall response time for a priority two has been 54 minutes in April from request to arrival at scene. This is less than ideal(their words).
NPAS were going to increase their cost to them by nearly a third due to(funny old thing) the fact that it’s taking NPAS longer to reduce their costs that originally thought, and the Force was requesting them too often, compared to other Forces. However NPAS relented, and agreed to keep their charges the same as last year.
The PCC and the Chief Constable have requested that they be kept the same for more than one year.
I suspect that they are not the only ones in that situation.