Tayside Joint Police Board has heard the future of policing in the region remains unclear.
A report to Monday’s committee from Chief Constable Justine Curran explained there had still been ”no indication” of what services a Scotland-wide force would provide locally, regionally or nationally and no advice on how local command areas would be grouped.
During a meeting at the County Buildings in Forfar, the board heard work is progressing on the National Police Service of Scotland, with the required legislation that was introduced to the Scottish Parliament on January 17 expected to be enacted by June.
Reports are to be submitted to the Government next month, providing detailed requirements for the first day of the new force’s service in April 2013 and suggestions as to how it should develop thereafter.
Perthshire councillor Lewis Simpson asked the chief constable if there would be redundancies at a senior level when the new force came into being.
She replied: ”There will be a significant amount of reductions but it is still not clear how that is going to work. However, I am confident that in five years’ time the force will be a leaner, meaner machine than we have got at the moment.”
Board members were told that the uptake of a police voluntary redundancy and early retirement scheme remained low, despite first being advertised in November.
Just 42 expressions of interest have been received to date and only 13 applications have been approved.
The Scottish Government is looking to save £106 million over the next five years and £1.4 billion over 15 years by moving from eight forces to one.
The Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland estimates it will need to find 2,000 redundancies by 2015-16.
Justice secretary Kenny MacAskill has ruled out compulsory redundancies and the Scottish Government remains committed to maintaining the extra 1,000 extra officers it has put on the street since 2007, which means most of the cut will be in civilian jobs.