As the dust settles on the worst rioting in a generation, now is the time to think about what the government has in mind for the future of our constabulary.

It is not just cuts, of which Norfolk is undergoing a 20pc reduction amounting to a loss of �24.5m over four years.

As things stand, next May we will go to the polling booths to vote for an elected Police and Crimes Commissioner with a mandate that includes the power to hire and fire the chief constable and setting the force budget. The cost nationally of this new system, according to Home Office figures, will be more than �130m, plus another �50m for elections every four years.

That is hardly chicken feed in an age of austerity and belt-tightening.

It is open to debate what makes the government think an elected commissioner is better qualified to oversee Norfolk Constabulary than the chief constable and Independent Police Authority.

So what is the motivation?

Certainly the Metropolitan force did not make any friends with the Conservatives when in 2008 they arrested Tory frontbencher Damian Green, then shadow immigration minister, as part of a leaks inquiry and counter-terrorism officers searched his home and constituency and Commons offices.

Conservative sources said David Cameron was furious and described the arrest as 'Stalinesque'. George Osborne, then Shadow Chancellor, said the police had some 'very big questions' to answer over the arrest.

In light of the phone-hacking scandal the Met's stock probably is not any higher in the Tories' estimation.

But of course these could not possibly be the reasons for bringing in – at huge cost – commissioners to each of the country's 43 constabularies. It is probably just coincidence.

Then again, perhaps the government's thoughts have also been sharpened by recent allegations of corruption against the chief constable of Cleveland and his deputy and a misconduct charge against the chief constable of North Yorkshire for helping a relative jump a recruitment queue.

Officially the reason for the reforms given by home secretary Theresa May in July 2010 is that they are about 'reconnecting police and the people'. In Norfolk that would appear to be trying to solve a problem that does not exist.

Our chief constable is accountable to the local Police Authority and has to stand by his record. The letters pages of this newspaper are not inundated with readers' grumbles against the constabulary.

Indeed the EDP has been proud to use the headline 'safest county in the country' more than once in recent years.

And in the past few weeks HM Inspectorate of Constabulary has praised efforts by Norfolk and Suffolk constabularies to work jointly to make combined savings of �38m over the next four years. That praise has been nothing less than effusive: 'the collaboration proposals are some of the most ambitious and well-planned in the country'. The change plan was described as 'exemplary'. HMIC has advised other forces to talk to ours for advice on how to make savings in backroom functions while protecting the frontline.

So Norfolk Constabulary does not appear to be broken and does not need fixing with the government's broad brush approach.

Police and politicians have never made comfortable bedfellows and there is a very real danger in these reforms of creating a politicised police force.

What if the commissioner wanted to be populist and put more bobbies on the beat in the city? That would be interfering with the chief constable's guaranteed operational independence. If he refused, presumably the commissioner could say, Lord Sugar-like, 'You're fired!'

What if the US President-style commissioner wanted to extract Norfolk from the cost-cutting exercise with Suffolk and exert his own authority? Presumably the savings would be lost from shared IT, human resource, finance and administration and in creating joint policing and criminal justice units? That would mean the commissioner would have to raise the council tax precept. But that might be rejected by the newly-created independent Police and Crime panel, set up to replicate the police authority, who have power of veto over precept levels.

Oh dear, now the election of a commissioner has actually created problems where ones did not exist. Perhaps not everything that is elected is necessarily good.

If the government wants to save money, should they not scrap the idea of commissioners and instead sanction an acceleration of merged services between contiguous forces, where maximum efficiencies and effectiveness can be achieved and the frontline preserved as best as possible?

Should they not be looking at a national procurement policy where economies of scale can be leveraged? Should the government not revisit the idea of completely merged constabularies?

Wouldn't that make more sense than spending �180m next May on elections that do not appear to be required? At least, certainly not in these parts.