ONE of Scotland's most senior police officers has said tens of millions of pounds worth of savings in policing over the next three years are unachievable.

Chief Constable Kevin Smith, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (Acpos), warned the pressure to make £88 million of cuts could hit plans to merge the current eight forces into a single Scottish Police Authority from April 2013.

Mr Smith is the first senior figure to say the plan, which aims to make a total of £1.5 billion of cuts over 15 years, is not possible. He said the service is keen to make the changes but believes the timeframe to be impossible.

He also criticised, during evidence to Holyrood's Justice Committee, the suggestion in the Bill to set up the force that ministers would be able to "direct" the new chief constable.

The written evidence from Acpos states: "We believe certain provisions within the Bill threaten the operational independence of the Chief Constable and, thereby, policing.

"The Scottish Government's position is ministerial directions are used rarely and ... policing can be no different from other Government departments. In a democratic society it not only must be separate from Government, it must be seen to be separate.

"We believe the power of ministerial direction ... if it is to remain, needs to be more fully articulated and described, and appropriate caveats placed thereon, to ensure it cannot result in an unintended consequence of ministerial direction of the Chief Constable."

The £88m of cuts by 2014/15 are due to rise to £106m in the following spending review in 2015/16. In the next three years, £50m of the cuts would come from police staff, with the loss of an anticipated 2000 police staff.

Mr Smith said the figures were based on an "outline" and not a full business case from the police. He added that, at the time, there was no specific time-scale and no constraints such as the stipulation there be no compulsory redundancies.

Mr Smith said: "It is not the case we don't want to do this but if we follow the law and due process it makes it impossible.

"The first occasion we will be a legal entity is April 1, 2013. That is the first occasion the new chief and authority will have to start this process.

"The savings equate to around 2000 people. We will not attract that number of volunteers. It is not a lack of commitment but we will not have enough people go from the service. We will not deliver the savings if we follow due process."

David O'Connor, president of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents (ASPS) said: "The biggest challenge is maintaining force delivery and public confidence but we need to maintain staff confidence and morale and that means having the right balance of police staff and officers."

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: "Acpos has assured ministers it is fully committed to developing and implementing the Police Reform Programme within the overall profile of investment and savings laid out in the Spending Review.

"The Scottish Government made additional money available for police and fire reform during the spending review period from 2012/13 onwards and we are in discussions with Acpos as to how this will be spent.

"Our outline business case sets out how our target of £106m annual savings after five years could be achieved. These savings don't start until year three of the current spending review period.

"The Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Bill improves accountability for policing and makes it clear the Chief Constable is accountable to the Scottish Police Authority and not ministers.

"It also provides strong safeguards to ensure ministers cannot control or direct the authority or the Chief Constable to do anything relating to specific police operations."