Police reforms - devil will be in the detail

State functionaries resisting cuts always warn how much they will affect the front line, whether it's Yates warning that counter-terrorism will suffer, or other police chiefs saying there will be fewer constables on the beat (though it's a year since I saw one, so should I be concerned?).

Streamline yourselves first, say critics of the police. Rightly so, considering the amount of bumph and form-filling police have to contend with. The Home Office and central quangoes have been to blame too, producing far too much paper - read the report and contemplate another example of Labour's utter failure to get to grips with running an organisation, a recurrent theme of recent posts here. The coalition needs to stop this now.

Sadly, Sir Hugh Orde has decided to stay on after all. Doubtless the police will go along with the policy of elected police commissioners, with some public huffing and puffing in order to divert attention from the real issue - which is: what then?

Expect Labour to put up compliant local candidates who have perhaps served on watch committees. Tories and independent elected mayors should be looking around for feistier individuals.

So some will be keener to exercise their muscle than others. But what muscle will that be? Will it cover the full range of issues proposed in The Plan? And - key, this - what of police operational autonomy? Does this mean the autonomy to keep requiring officers to handwrite multiple copies of single forms? Will commissioners just be able to write down a list of priorities on a sheet of paper and have no more influence on local policing? Will targets merely become local rather than national?

This will be the battleground. The interesting Direct Democracy espouses local control. But, just as police forces can share ideas nationally, so the new and usually inexperienced police commissioners should certainly pool their experiences rather than getting picked off separately by politically astute if organisationally inept chief constables.

The devil will be in the detail, not in headline police acceptance of the policy of directly elected police commissioners. And that is where media interest wanes - certainly in the national media. Expect the police to be designing their obstacles already.