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NPAS 2017 news

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NPAS 2017 news

Old 30th Nov 2017, 06:24
  #201 (permalink)  
 
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It’s on the BBC this morning and it’s shocking
Are people going to be held to account for this?
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Old 30th Nov 2017, 06:55
  #202 (permalink)  
 
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Well, it is accountants taking figures without background Data and without understanding.
Was the bird on the ground?
From when starts the time? Making the call, explaning where to go and what the mission is? Takes normaly a couple of minutes, well spent cause it is easier to gather Information on the phone compared to beeing in a noisy Environment where you should also do a lookout i.e..
How was the weather forecast, allowing immediate scramble or was it wise to have a look onto the enroute weather?
Was a direkt flight possible or were deviations due to weather or ATC necessary?
When does the clock stop?
First call on frequency or overhead, while the FLIR Camera was locked on the target and already scanning for the last three minutes before beeing overhead?
Which distances had to be covered between mission target and Point of scramble?
Any wind in favour or against the helicopter?
Only numbers you should just trash, thats only good for headlines but has nothing to do with how the buiseness works!!!
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Old 30th Nov 2017, 12:12
  #203 (permalink)  
 
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My missus is a Merseyside bobby. When I talk to her colleagues, they ALL say “we don’t bother asking for a helicopter anymore, there’s just no point”
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Old 30th Nov 2017, 12:45
  #204 (permalink)  
 
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Flying Bull, either you don't know who the HMIC are, or your foreign, which is it?

The facts speak for themselves, The man running this (the Chief Supt) has had enough time now to rebuild NPAS and make it more efficient.

He has bugg**ed the staff up placing non SME's in positions which require SME's!
He has removed nearly all the aviators from the decision making processes. Cops now account for 95% of the board?
He's bought FW before he did a proper technical assessment of whether the finished article would work (it hasn't).
He has located the assets in places where the shortfall in response times would make the biggest impact on operational performance indicators.

No wonder the results are what they are.

I would imagine he'll be moved sideways in 2018 by either the CC of W Yorks, or the PCC, so someone with experience in these matters can make the right decisions.
One of our jewels in the police crown has been tarnished simply because of bad management.

Let's see how they reverse out of this now, but I fear it will now come under the beady gaze of the treasury who will see it as a target for removal as a whole. NPAS will then have a whole new meaning: NO police air service.
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Old 30th Nov 2017, 13:16
  #205 (permalink)  
 
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And all predictable and widely predicted by those in the know on this forum....
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Old 30th Nov 2017, 13:27
  #206 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by [email protected]
And all predictable and widely predicted by those in the know on this forum....
Nearly 2 years since I last posted, but all I can muster is........agreed.
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Old 30th Nov 2017, 13:38
  #207 (permalink)  
 
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@Thomas Coupling
You‘re right, I‘m foreign - stil just throwing numbers in without background info is just not right and a kick in the a.. for those on the front trying to do their best against all odds.
I know how long it can take from call to target
And all the variables which interfer.
To discuss things properly much more info is needed, part of it you supplied.
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Old 30th Nov 2017, 15:00
  #208 (permalink)  
 
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Nothing to do with the front line troops FB. It's the NPAS board doing this damage.

HMIC are expert auditers.

I alos had 13 years working for NPAS and know exactly where the problem lies.
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Old 30th Nov 2017, 15:44
  #209 (permalink)  

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Has a study been made into the money lost by NPAS by closing down aviation bases? The one I worked at wasn't finished until the late 1990s and has now been wasted.
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Old 30th Nov 2017, 15:47
  #210 (permalink)  
 
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To discover this 5 years after NPAS launched is bad enough. If it is the case, as posters with specialist knowledge suggest, that they were warned by practitioners that this would happen 2 years or more before that and to have those warnings ignored is even worse.
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Old 30th Nov 2017, 15:50
  #211 (permalink)  
 
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I think this is the only positive comment that I came across:
Among those who lead police aviation, we have found high levels of skill, dedication and commitment. In particular, we recognise the major contributions made by the members of the NPAS National Strategic Board and especially by the current chief constable of West Yorkshire Police and the police and crime commissioner (PCC) for West Yorkshire.
I highlighted so many comments in the report that it's difficult to choose.

Since 2009, the number of police aircraft has been reduced from 33 to 19 and there has been a reduction of about 45 percent in the number of hours flown. There is some evidence to suggest that police officers are making less use of air support because it takes too long to arrive.
Well we all knew that. It was immediately evident with the formation of the North West Air Operations Group in 2011, the forerunner of NPAS.

We also found evidence that suggests that the way NPAS shift changes are scheduled has an adverse effect on aircraft availability at a particular time each day.
I raised that point back in 2011, about having Units all changing shifts at the same time.

There are strong indications that the police service now operates insufficient aircraft to provide consistently prompt responses to incidents in all forces in England and Wales.
No ****, Sherlock!

In 2008/09, the police service was operating 33 aircraft for an annual revenue cost of £45m, and initial calculations were that a national police air service could maintain a fleet of 29 helicopters for an annual revenue cost of £37.5m. In 2016/17, NPAS was operating 19 helicopters (with four fixed-wing aircraft still to come) with a revenue budget of £39.6m, an amount that represented a real-terms reduction in funding of about 28 percent since 2008/09. With each aircraft flying fewer hours on average, however, the cost per flying hour has doubled.
Not exactly "more effective and efficient".

Many frontline officers made it clear to us during our fieldwork, however, that a response time of up to one hour when dealing with a crime in action such as a burglary is far too long, and that the targets contained within the service level agreement are not fit for purpose.
Yep.

Professional practice requires air support for pursuits whenever possible and at the earliest opportunity, but officers in some forces told us that most pursuits ended before an aircraft could arrive. Some officers said that the delay was sometimes caused by NPAS questioning the necessity for air support in pursuit cases, and this made the work of pursuit and incident commanders more challenging, because they had to manage the pursuit without knowing if air support was a realistic tactical option.
I believe Pursuits were originally classed as Priority 2.

In one force, officers reported that the number of pursuits had risen from 100 in 2014 to 336 in 2016, and that debriefing of prisoners had revealed that part of the reason was criminal perception that the police no longer had ready access to helicopter support.
Well, fancy that.

Judgments
• There is no clear evidence that current arrangements are financially any more or less efficient than when forces managed their own air support, and costs are not shared equitably between forces.
• NPAS in its current form is financially unsustainable: the capital investment strategy has left NPAS without adequate funding to replace its ageing fleet of aircraft.
Pretty damning.

It was suggested that some forces were now requesting air support more frequently than they had before, monitoring an aircraft’s travel, and then cancelling the aircraft shortly before it arrived if they were satisfied that the incident could be managed without it. This meant that there was no ‘actioned call for service’ and so no charge would fall to the force,
Oooo, sneaky!

jayteetoo said:
My missus is a Merseyside bobby. When I talk to her colleagues, they ALL say “we don’t bother asking for a helicopter anymore, there’s just no point”
Actually:
In 2016, Merseyside Police made the most calls for air support, with a rate more than twice the average for forces in England and Wales.
One thing that is absent from the report is any reference to manning levels(or should I say "staffing" this days), and comments on single crewing and aircraft being offline due to sick pilots any no reliefs.

Well, I think that's enough for now.
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Old 30th Nov 2017, 16:04
  #212 (permalink)  

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Among those who lead police aviation, we have found high levels of skill, dedication and commitment. In particular, we recognise the major contributions made by the members of the NPAS National Strategic Board and especially by the current chief constable of West Yorkshire Police and the police and crime commissioner (PCC) for West Yorkshire.
Is this another way of pointing the finger of blame?
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Old 1st Dec 2017, 19:28
  #213 (permalink)  
 
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When I ( was compulsorily ) retired from a very efficient Air Support Unit, shortly before my Unit joined NPAS, I predicted, and mentioned on pPrune somewhere, that NPAS would not achieve its initial Sales Pitch objectives to provide a more efficient service at a reduced cost, and that in years to come, a dynamic thinking Chief Constable and / or PCC would turn full circle and decide that their Force was not receiving an adequate ( Fit for Purpose ) service, would leave NPAS and buy their own Aircraft, run by their own staff and Police Officers.

I now wish I had put a few quid on that prediction with Ladbrokes !

Coconutty
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Old 1st Dec 2017, 20:03
  #214 (permalink)  
 
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It seems the cops and HMIC know nothing about Helicopters according to this PCC, how absolutely arrogant of him and exactly the problem with NPAS's attitude

PCC questions HMICFRS ‘expertise’ on aircraft following damning report

01 Dec 2017

A police and crime commissioner (PCC) has defended the tasking arrangements of the National Police Air Service (NPAS) after a critical inspection report revealed forces are charged “inequitably”.

On Thursday (November 30), Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) criticised NPAS for weaknesses in governance, tasking arrangements, and its response times.

It made several recommendations for the air service to consider, and HM Inspector of Constabulary Matt Parr said “urgent reform” was needed.

Thames Valley PCC Anthony Stansfeld insists the National Strategic Board (NSB) – responsible for setting the strategic direction of NPAS – considered “every possible way of tasking” and the current model, which charges forces every time they request a helicopter, is the most “logical and fair”.

“Whatever formula you go to, some police forces are going to say it’s unfair or it’s not as good as it was. You’re not going to please everybody all the time.”

Mr Stansfeld, who ran British helicopters on the Falkland Islands and was previously managing director of the company that supplied airplanes to the police service, questioned the inspectorate’s knowledge of aircraft.

“My personal view is HMICFRS are not experts to put it mildly,” he said. “Whereas people like myself on the board, and the man who runs it operationally, know vastly more than they do about it.”

The report also revealed NPAS was spending large amounts of its capital on upgrading parts of old aircraft instead of replacing its “ageing fleet”, leaving it “financially unstable”.

As helicopters reach the end of their life expiry dates, changes to gear boxes and engines must be made, making them more expensive to maintain.

However, Mr Stansfeld claimed the helicopters are far from obsolete, noting that the Royal Air Force still operated Pumas bought more than four decades ago.

He went on to praise West Yorkshire Police for the set-up of the air service, as he said the force “made a pretty good fist at putting NPAS together” considering the limited resources available to policing.

NPAS will soon roll out fixed wing airplanes, which are less expensive to purchase and run, and stay in the air for longer than helicopters.

“Unless you need to land vertically, or look down roads between very high-rise buildings in the middle of cities, the actual requirement for helicopters on most of the tasks can be done by fixed wing,” he added.

“And so we are moving to some fixed wing as well as helicopters. Whether we move to more depends on how successful they are.”

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) recently ordered 29 EC135 helicopters for training, and Mr Stansfeld called on the department to “cooperate” with the police service.

Talks between the MoD and the NSB with on the joint maintenance, piloting and purchasing of aircraft have been “without much success”.

On response times, Mr Stansfeld said budget cuts have forced a reduction in bases, which has subsequently led to longer distances for the helicopters to travel.

“It’s not up to HMICFRS to make helicopters faster, I’m afraid. It’s outside their bounds of responsibility and capability”.

He added: “This is not something that it controls, nor does the police service itself really control.”

Police Professional :: News :: PCC questions HMICFRS ?expertise? on aircraft following damning report
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Old 1st Dec 2017, 20:39
  #215 (permalink)  
 
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Back in post #182 when I posted the figures from 2016/7, I pondered:
How many of those 15,432 hours were taken up with 20, 30, 40 minute transits?
Well, it appears that none of them were. From my latest FOI request, all those hours were the charged for actioned calls for service for Forces for that period.

The cost all those transit hours is divvied up amongst all the Forces.
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Old 1st Dec 2017, 21:44
  #216 (permalink)  
 
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All very much as expected.

I was surprised to learn that the report was written by Matt Parr - a submariner not an aviator - recently joined HMICFRS which sort of explains some of the tangents he goes off on [like promoting drones as if they will be the answer to everything].

This morning an item from Police Professional appeared on the net...
” Thames Valley PCC Anthony Stansfeld insists the National Strategic Board (NSB) – responsible for setting the strategic direction of NPAS – considered “every possible way of tasking” and the current model, which charges forces every time they request a helicopter, is the most “logical and fair”.

“Whatever formula you go to, some police forces are going to say it’s unfair or it’s not as good as it was. You’re not going to please everybody all the time.”

Mr Stansfeld, who ran British helicopters on the Falkland Islands and was previously managing director of the company that supplied airplanes to the police service, questioned the inspectorate’s knowledge of aircraft”

Clearly a snipe at the authors background by a person of some standing.

Having met Mr Stansfield at a UK police aviation conference event I would say he has the future of police aviation very much at heart but his own positive stance does not actually resolve any of the core problems. Unfortunately he was the only member of the Strategic board to turn up. That says a great deal about the others.

Last edited by PANews; 2nd Dec 2017 at 10:49. Reason: Added text
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Old 2nd Dec 2017, 13:57
  #217 (permalink)  
 
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PAN

If they've considered “every possible way of tasking” then how in heaven's name did they choose the one they have which builds in unnecessary delays at every turn?
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Old 2nd Dec 2017, 16:03
  #218 (permalink)  
 
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What really brasses me off, is that what has happened is EXACTLY what i predicted back in 2010 and 2011 and what got me into so much trouble for saying it! It didn't take a "brain of Britain" to work out that by reducing the bases and number of aircraft by over a third you were going to end up with a serious drop in operational efficiency. The remaining aircraft have greater distances to fly and as a result take longer to get there. Our rule of "If it it takes longer than 15 minutes to get there (From the start of the incident) then don't bother you will be too late!" That rule went out of the window! In addition fairly local crews knew their territory and often who they were looking for. All of that thrown away. No wonder the guys on the ground stopped asking for air support!
By 2008 Air support in this Country led the world! 6 years later with NPAS in control we were dead in the water! Yes there are still some very good units, but I would submit that they are good because they are the ones still located close to their main centres of demand.
A very sad story, But it is not down to the units on the front line, its down to the Bean Counters that drove the formation of NPAS as soley driven by money saving. The concept that a National Force using the existing fleet and bases could actually improve operational effectiveness never ever came into it. It was only ever about saving money not doing Police work!

TF Yes I'm still here even if very wrinkly these days!
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Old 2nd Dec 2017, 18:52
  #219 (permalink)  
 
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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.
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Old 2nd Dec 2017, 19:18
  #220 (permalink)  

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Any of us with any inside knowledge of UK police aviation support knew that the NPAS plan could never work as efficiently as what existed before. In aviation, reducing assets can only result in a reduced capability.

Unfortunately, those brought in to run it were adamant that it could.

I used the term "smoke and mirrors" more than once. The smoke has now been blown aside.
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