Some more pearls of wisdom from the report:
when we visited NPAS in Wakefield in February 2017, we found that there were only eight aircraft available for operational deployment that day, and one of those had a fault that restricted it to daytime flying only. Two further aircraft were serviceable but deployed on training duties, meaning that the remaining nine aircraft were unavailable because of planned maintenance, faults or technical upgrades. It appeared to us, therefore, that one reason for the reduction in overall flying hours could be reduced aircraft availability when compared with the pre-NPAS period.
Heads should roll for that. Less than 50% availability!!!
Regarding the procurement of fixed wing:
In February 2015, the board decided to add a fourth fixed-wing aircraft, to allow three to be deployed operationally while one was released for maintenance. However, we found NPAS managers were uncertain where and how these aircraft would be deployed, and what effect their use would have on levels of service to forces. While there was an ongoing programme of work to deal with this, we were surprised that such procurement decisions had been made without a clear plan for deployment of these aircraft and a detailed understanding of the implications.
"Lets get some fixed wing. They're cheap to run. Save some more money"
"How are we going to us them?"
"Don't worry, we'll figure that out later. Just buy some and we can say we've saved more money."
...and there's more:
We were told by NPAS managers, however, that a fixed-wing aircraft will take at least twice if not three times as long as a helicopter to take off, and this might mean that it is more suited to tasks requiring long flying durations than those requiring an immediate response.167 We were therefore somewhat surprised that the board had taken the decision to purchase four fixed-wing aircraft based on the results of a limited trial and with limited analysis of their effectiveness.