I N 2013 THE residents of sleepy Highland villages noticed something odd. Armed police had started popping up on their streets. Cops with guns were spotted at a bakery in Brora, a fishing village, sparking alarm. Others queuing in a supermarket caused a stir down the road in Inverness. Police vans clad in anti-riot gear cruised through remote moorlands.

That year, Scotland’s eight regional police forces became a single national squad. Merging was intended to save money by ending the duplication of HR departments, call centres and so on. It was also meant to improve policing. National units would investigate rare crimes like murder, leaving local bobbies to get on with bread-and-butter stuff.

The fledgling force had a bumpy start. Small constabularies saw it as a takeover by Strathclyde Police, the biggest of the bunch. The spread of armed officers was one aspect of “Strathclydisation”, where tough Glaswegian tactics were rolled out to the sticks. Use of stop and search also increased. Methods that work on inner-city gangs are unsuited to places where duties include rescuing cats from trees, says Willie Rennie, leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats. His party argues that amalgamation has eroded local policing.

Governing such a large force has proved hard. Claims of bullying and of spying on journalists have dogged its top brass. A new watchdog lacks a clear mandate and is leant on by ministers, says Ali Malik, a criminologist. And the force’s high profile means that policing has become a bigger political issue. The force’s blunders are used as a stick with which to bash the Scottish Nationalist government that set it up.

But there are signs that the merger is bearing fruit. Although the force lumbers on with a mismatch of computer systems inherited from its predecessors, costs have fallen by 18% since 2012-13. Whereas belt-tightening has led to a drop in officers south of the border, numbers in Scotland have remained stable, at just over 17,000—though many have been stuffed into back-office roles, replacing civilians who were sacked instead. Armed police are once again a rare sight in the Highlands, and reforms are under way to improve accountability.

Scottish policing was shambolic before the merger, says Niven Rennie, an ex-head of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents. Competition between forces hampered decision-making, and their ability to deal with complex crimes varied wildly. Centralisation has brought consistency. Rape cases, for example, are now handled by specially trained officers. Victims’ experience has improved significantly, says Sandy Brindley of Rape Crisis Scotland. The police have also got better at going after organised criminals, who do not respect constabulary boundaries.

A popular new chief constable, Iain Livingstone, must now convince a sceptical public that the merger is working. “Merging was the right decision,” says Nick Fyfe of Dundee University. “But people underestimated how complicated it would be.”