Whilst front line services have been maintained, the technical challenges of amalgamating a number of organisations together continues to absorb a great deal of management capacity and consequently allows less time for strategic planning, innovation and improvement. There continue to be issues in developing workforce planning, ICT integration, availability of effective management and performance information, consistent application of policy and the development of effective scrutiny. It is our opinion that both Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service are still at an early stage of a significant programme of transformational change. Some of that change will take time to achieve, and only once implemented will it be possible to fully assess whether the intended benefits of reform have been fully realised.  HMICS has committed to scrutiny of Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority around their implementation and governance of the corporate strategy and supporting plans.