Westminster may not think it has much to take a lead from in relation to Holyrood, Scotland’s concrete parliament building in the heart of Edinburgh. But at the very least, it must not replicate one of its greatest mistakes.

The UK Government announced earlier this year it wanted to reduce the number of police forces in England from 43 down to between 10 and 20. It would be a humungous amalgamation, and one of the biggest public sector reforms to have taken place in Britain for decades.

As the proposals are being considered, many are wondering what the end result would look like.

They should look no further than the dire state of affairs currently afflicting policing and justice in Scotland, the only part of the UK to have gone through anything like a merger on this scale. In 2013 Police Scotland was created out of eight legacy forces, and is now one of the UK’s largest.

It means diverse organisations like Strathclyde Police, which were responsible for the mean streets of Glasgow, were thrown together with the likes of Northern Constabulary, which patrolled a gigantic geographical area made up of islands, remote communities and some of Europe’s last true wilderness regions.

We’re now more than a decade in, and the results have been catastrophic. The move was all about efficiencies, and some Scottish Government ministers even boasted about savings of around £200 million a year …