THERE is an echo in Maryhill Burgh Hall. The refurbished Victorian Glasgow venue has the high ceilings and mock stained-glass windows of a kirk. Whispers carry. 
It was here, yesterday, that Scotland’s new Chief Constable was for the first time formally introduced to the men and women who are to keep him in check for the next four years, the Scottish Police Authority (SPA).
As his appointment was announced, a woman in the small audience watching proceedings mouthed “yay”. Her word wafted across the pews, way further than she intended. 
Iain Livingstone was in charge and she was pleased.  She is not alone. Mr Livingstone – “Livi” behind his back – has his supporters in policing. The rank and file, staff and officers, want a period of normality after a year or two when Police Scotland was torrid at the top.
Mr Livingstone, in a formal uniform shirt and tie, rather than full jacket with shiny pips and buttons, sat opposite Susan Deacon, the former Labour minister who now chairs the SPA.
Over the echoey sound system the two traded compliments about each other, their staff and colleagues. 
Mr Livingstone and Ms Deacon, who helped appoint him, had not quite slapped each others’ backs as they shook hands in a photo opportunity. But that was the vibe.
And yet amid the platitudes and pleasantries of an SPA meeting, the language spelled out something new was happening in “Scotland’s policing family”. The old – an SPA chairman mired in rows and a chief constable under investigation for bullying – is gone. Mr Livingstone and Ms Deacon are starting a fresh. “Reset”, “New chapter”, “Strengthening leadership” were some of the buzzwords bouncing off the walls of Maryhill Burgh Hall.
First Ms Deacon had to acknowledge things had not been easy.  “I have seen at first hand just how they have individually and collectively pulled together through a challenging period and have done so with great dignity and professionalism,” she said of the men and women running Police Scotland. 
“I have nothing but the upmost respect for the way you have worked through that period. I am delighted we are moving on now to a new chapter. It is important to record what you have done.”
Mr Livingstone in turn praised the “dignity and grace “ of colleagues, and  said he was “confident” he could do his job? Why? Because he has so much confidence in Scotland’s cops. His core message: “We are united.” The era of infighting and official grievances are over at another old draughty pile, Police Scotland’s Tulliallan Castle HQ.
Police Scotland is new.  So is the SPA. Just five years. And yet everything has been “refreshed”. Mr Livingstone may have been in the top corridor since day one but all of his deputies are new or newish.  The chief, he re-iterated, has asked one of his new deputies, Fiona Taylor, to look at command structures. She herself will take on a new portfolio with a focus on professionalism.  Ms Deacon too is new,  nine months into the job. So are seven members of her board. By the end of the year the SPA will have a new chief executive, Hugh Grover.  In reality Mr Livingstone has been running Police Scotland for almost as long as Ms Deacon has led the SPA, filling in for his predecessor Phil Gormley. 
At yesterday’s meeting he spelled out what has become a familiar pitch. Police Scotland, he said, had to make sure the whole country got a basic level of service. This – and here comes an unspoken, unacknowledged truth – has not always been the case. Some of Scotland’s smaller constabularies had been struggling before the single force. Murders were going unsolved. 
Mr Livingstone, however,  said the time had come for more regional devolution on local policing issues. “We did value consistency and compliance over local differences,” he said.  
Previous chiefs have been stung by the media and political scrutiny of Police Scotland, not least on localism. Mr Livingstone echoed that. Has the SPA held the force to account? Not so much, say critics. Yesterday’s warm words were about change. One of those changes, signalled Ms Deacon, is an SPA that will ask hard questions.