The farcical goings-on at the Scottish Police Services Authority were anticipated by many people who, like myself, had long warned about the set-up and structure of the organisation. The authority has decided, rather belatedly, to remove its chief executive from public office after a series of significant and expensive challenges in the civil courts.

The farcical goings-on at the Scottish Police Services Authority were anticipated by many people who, like myself, had long warned about the set-up and structure of the organisation. The authority has decided, rather belatedly, to remove its chief executive from public office after a series of significant and expensive challenges in the civil courts.

There are many across Scotland who will take pleasure in this outcome. I do not. The failures here relate not merely to the fact that the chief executive was unsuitable for the role. The issues raised in respect of David Mulhern's conduct and performance were allowed to develop due to a series of fudges involving senior civil servants at the Justice Department, their opposite numbers within the Association of Chief Police Officers for Scotland and their subsequent silent acquiescence.

The chief executive, supported by Mervyn Rolfe, the now departed first convenor, and backed by an ineffective SPSA board, seemed to be at odds with the stated wishes of the Scottish Parliament. There appeared to be no unity over strategy and their business case did not appear to justify this approach.

As a result, the chief executive presided over an authority which seemed to give him unbridled power, despite repeated advice and information. As a consequence, the Scottish police service lost a large number of valued members of staff, and threw away significant advantages as well as resources. Those who should have intervened just sat on their hands.

These matters are far too important to be resolved unseen by people who so often appear to be unaccountable. In addition, the basic failure to provide Mr Mulhern with a clear contract of employment even allowed him to question the authority of his own board to discipline him. If the chief executive of such an important police support service thought he was not accountable to his board then who was he accountable to?

The issue of accountability goes to the very heart and soul of modern day frontline policing and how the people of Scotland are protected from crime. In essence, it is about making sure Scottish officers, such as those at the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, are able to make important and often very difficult decisions based solely on operational criteria and not on some back office deal about budgets, personnel and the like.

It is very hard to believe that the introduction of the SPSA was the result of nearly 10 years of discussions between civil servants and police chiefs. Though it is instructive to remember that those discussions were born in the light of Donald Dewar's declared intention to rationalise the current set up of the eight police forces. Special interests however, ensured that political attention was diverted effectively by a more "reasonable" target - the creation of a unified back office support organisation later called SPSA.

After such a long lead-in period, I could hardly imagine a more confused and poorly planned implementation for any new organisation. How it was decided to shoehorn the SCDEA into this arrangement was equally difficult to understand. Many Scottish politicians certainly do not understand that decision to this day.

Now is the time to move forward. I hope sincerely that those involved will today look themselves in the mirror and consider what part they played (or failed to play) in the development of this new element of Scottish justice.

The farce around the creation of the SPSA has made it all the more important to ensure future plans concentrate on what is good for our communities and deals with their priorities. Too often officials judge these issues by what is convenient and useful to them personally. The true cost of this approach to the public, in terms of resources, cash and staff loyalty, is too significant to be ignored.

If this episode is to have a happy ending a newly shaped police service supported by a focused SPSA is required. At the same time, the creation of an independent SCDEA will ensure that it is capable of taking on wider responsibilities in the specialist area of covert law enforcement. Now is the time for our politicians to step up to the plate and play their part. As our democratically elected members, it is for them to state clearly what the future shape of policing in 21st-century Scotland needs to be.

This is not, nor should it ever be, merely a private conversation between bureaucrats. Crime impacts on all of us but particularly affects the most vulnerable members of our community. Decisions about how it should be dealt with are far too important to be left to the small privileged managerial elite.

• Professor Graeme Pearson is head of the unit for the study of serious and organised crime at Glasgow University and former director general of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency.