THE office does little to suggest the importance of the man sitting behind the desk:

plain and drab, it speaks more of the current age of austerity than the elevation of Sir Stephen House to become one of Scotland's most powerful men.

The recently knighted House has, during the last 12 months, led the biggest changes to the police in a generation. In this financial year he must make savings of more than £60 million. Next year, he needs to cut more than £130m from the national police budget.

Sitting in his Stirling office in Randolphfield House, the former headquarters of what was once Central Scotland Police, he looks more than ready for the challenge. Certainly he is confident, single-minded, assured: in the past he has said "it's arrogant to say you're not arrogant". But today he is also a little defensive of the recent criticism Police Scotland has recently received.

Born in Glasgow in 1957, he grew up in Castlemilk, then Bishopbriggs, then Inchinnan. He joined the police in 1981 and worked his way up the ranks to become deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police before leaving to head up the Strathclyde force in late 2007.

Under his leadership, Strathclyde saw seismic changes and dramatic decreases in violence. And since the eight forces were merged into one to create Police Scotland on April 1 this year, he has presided over further reductions in violent crime across the country. However, rape is now reported more commonly than robbery in Scotland, with almost 1000 attacks since April. Reported rapes have increased by 35% to 905 between April and September; the number of robberies fell 25% to 727 over the same period.

The first six months have not been without controversy. In June, about 150 police officers raided saunas across Edinburgh and, in a second wave during August, completed the sweep of all 13. Five people were charged with brothel-keeping and living off immoral earnings, and others face drugs charges.

Support agencies, MSPs and councillors were critical of the move, which many saw as an illustration of a "Glasgow-centric" approach of the new service, which ignored the route Edinburgh had taken to deal with its vice problem.

Last week, the Sunday Herald reported that Edinburgh City Council's "blind eye" policy of licensing saunas over the past 27 years is in tatters after Police Scotland was accused of using "tackety-boots" to shatter the capital's arrangement. Senior council figures are privately discussing the radical option of taking saunas and massage parlours off the official list of establishments requiring a licence to operate.

Lothians MSP Margo MacDonald, who supports the licensing of saunas, has said: "I know that this option [of abandoning the policy] is being considered. Stephen House promised that the single force would still have local policing, but there has been nothing local in the approach.

"He has taken a developed policy that has had the acquiescence of civic society and destroyed it. It has been the tackety-boot approach, with Police Scotland acting like the Met on a bad day."

Increases in stop searches - of which there have been more than 300,000 in the first five months of the new service - have also been controversial.

"After the first six months I feel satisfied," House says. "Not wildly positive but I am satisfied. Most things have gone well. Some things could have gone better - a lot could have gone a lot worse.

"We could have got our message across better on localism. Obviously people are concerned about it. We are working on that now. It is not going to be one size fits all. I understand why people are concerned.

"I don't believe the [Edinburgh saunas] approach is different to what went before. We have always done licensing checks there. It is a perception people are concerned about, but we are going to try harder to calm concerns.

"We need to appreciate that being a national organisation we are hugely visible and we are a political reality. That means politicians will comment on policing. We are an easy example for people to use, so we have to accept that is going to happen, without getting involved in the politics ourselves."

When he joined Strathclyde in 2007, House made dramatic changes, many of which were as unpopular as those he's now making. The number of superintendents and senior officers was cut, more bobbies were put on the beat, and every rank was put on rotas to hit the streets. Stop-search figures soared and problems with gangs and violent crime fell.

Last week, House met with the leaders of Edinburgh City Council. He describes it as a "positive" meeting. The local authority is currently reviewing a proposal to cut back on the funding it supplies for additional community cops - a move Police Scotland can ill afford.

As part of localism, the police are asking communities what they want. Their second consultation with Scotland's 353 wards has just begun. House says the priorities are likely to be about anti-social behaviour, alcohol-related violence, road safety and some aspects of acquisitive crime.

"I want to focus on what people locally are telling us," he says. "Every organisation struggles with change," he says. "We are an organisation that has gone through massive change in the last six or 12 months - more than most people have seen in policing in a generation.

"When the single force was discussed, officers from the project team went over to the Netherlands because the Netherlands were looking at doing this. The Netherlands are coming over here now because they are still doing it and we've already done it.

"The speed it has been done at is a huge tribute to everyone involved in the planning ... Policing has gone on seamlessly and has actually got better. We have now got specialist rape investigation units across Scotland, we've set up the counter corruption unit. Violent crime is continuing to reduce and domestic abuse is being dealt with better."