When the Scottish Government announced the plans to merge Scotland’s eight police forces into one, they complained: “Scotland can no longer afford to do things eight times over.” (There have been, actually, more than eight services – there was also the nuclear police, the transport police and the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency). In parliament, however, a requirement was made to have plans for all the 32 local authorities, and today it’s been announced that there will be 14 policy authority areas, replacing the previous eight. So the main effect of a single police service is not to reduce the number of service divisions, but to centralise control.