The future of local policing is at stake. The Scottish Government has announced a consultation on the reform of Police Forces, ruling out the status quo of eight forces and favouring a single police force for Scotland. A single force would remove local accountability and local setting of priorities for operational policing, centralising resources, jobs and power in the central belt. The government is hoping to save £200 million by getting rid of seven forces. However 85% of police budgets are in people, so in effect a cut of this magnitude would mean the loss of thousands of police support staff and police officers. Getting rid of 7 Chief Constables would not achieve this. Many of the remaining officers would need to do the back of house desk jobs that support staff were doing. Most of the jobs would disappear in the North of Scotland, already hit by the closure of RAF bases and the impact of the recession. Resources from the North would be used to bolster policing in the central belt, with long term repercussions for communities in the Highlands and Islands and North East of Scotland. Add to this the costs of setting up a single force - thought to be far in excess of £100 million - possibly double that figure if you include the thousands of redundancies. ACPOS and COSLA are amongst a number of organisations who have called for policing to be reviewed in tandem with other public services including local authorities and the NHS. This is a critical time for the future of policing - If local policing is dismantled now, the changes will be devastating and long lasting for local communities in the north of Scotland in particular. Sign up to this petition if you want to see true locally accountable policing retained in regional Forces which understand local issues and which reflect the regional differences across Scotland.