Given the widely differing cost per hour in my post #182, I asked NPAS the following:
If an aircraft is tasked to a Force:
When does that Force start paying? From take off, or arrival on scene?
If the aircraft is cancelled en-route, does that Force still pay?
If the aircraft is subsequently tasked to another Force while airborne, when does the second Force start paying?
If, for example, the Hawarden aircraft is tasked to Blackpool and then receives a task to Chester, whilst still over Blackpool, does Cheshire have to pay for the transit from Blackpool to Chester, some 20- 25 minutes, when if it was on the ground at Hawarden, it would be less than 5 minutes to Chester?
Back came the reply(after the statutory 20(although in this case 25 after a gentle reminder) days):
Each force is charged when an aircraft arrives on scene irrespective of where the aircraft has flown from. If the aircraft is cancelled en-route the force does not have to pay.
NPAS utilises ‘actioned calls for service’ as the currency for charging forces. This doesn’t rely on hours flown but creates a ‘unit cost’ by dividing the revenue cost of delivering NPAS against the numbers of calls delivered to forces.
The cost per force is calculated by considering
- The total revenue cost for NPAS
- The number of calls delivered to each force in the preceding 12 month period (Jan-Dec)
- The total cost is then divided by the number of actioned calls providing a cost per call to be
allocated
A call is only charged when an aircraft is assigned to a call and arrives on scene. If an aircraft is cancelled en-route the force requesting does not pay as an actioned call has not been delivered. If an aircraft is diverted en-route from one task to another it is only the force that the actioned call is delivered to that pays.
OK, so who pays for all the transit flying?
Meanwhile:
From November's Police Aviation News...
Meanwhile here in the UK we await with some impa-
tience the report of Her Majesty’s Inspector of Con-
stabulary (HMIC) into NPAS.
It's due to be published on Thursday, and should be available here:
https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.../publications/
Looking forward to reading it.