The Police Service of Northern Ireland needs further major reorganisation, its chief constable, Mr Hugh Orde has said.
The PSNI is broken up into 29 separate command units, covering 26 districts councils and three more covering Belfast.
"They are all too small. We need to look at economies of scale. I cannot have a situation where I have superintendents in charge of 50 to 150 people. If you look at the rest of the UK a superintendent would command 400 to 500.
"The average is 250 and 400. So we are too small," he told the Association of European Journalists in Dublin.
The 26 city, borough and district councils could be reduced to seven, 11 or 15 under a series of options put forward by a major review of Northern Ireland local government earlier this month.
"The local boundary review has just reported. Its recommendations may be the driver for that," said the chief constable, during a one-day visit to Dublin. "I am not quite sure that I can wait for however long the consultation takes place between seven, 11 and 15 different councils. Seven would suit me, quite frankly," he said.
Emphasising that major progress had been made, Mr Orde said northern crime levels had dropped by 20 per cent despite fears that general crime would increase as paramilitarism faded.
He described the PSNI as "probably the most accountable police service in the UK, if not in Europe, if not in further afield".
"There is a question to be raised now about over-accountability. There are now so many groups that have a right to look into my world.
"More and more of our time is spent servicing these groups rather than serving the communities that we are supposed to be looking after.
"Some are vital: the Policing Board, the DPPs, the Police Ombudsman, Oversight Commissioner, Human Rights Commissioner, Children's Commissioner, Criminal Justice Inspectorate, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary.
"What you are seeing is perhaps more people looking into my world than perhaps need to be there, so there is a debate to be had in the future.
"If that debate takes place what we cannot have though is a system where people do not think we are being held properly to account," he told the association.
He believed the PSNI had as much, if not more, to learn from European police forces as it did from its counterparts in the United States.
"I am quite interested in turning more towards Europe in terms of learning about policing. There is an obsession, which is in a way driven by the Oversight Commission onwards, in looking towards the United States to learn about policing.
"The US does not have our Human Rights Act, whereas European forces do. There is as much learning to be had looking towards Europe as there is looking to the US."
Once more urging Sinn Féin to join the Policing Board, the chief constable said the PSNI currently received 5,000 applications for every 270 posts offered.
"Should Sinn Féin choose to join the Policing Board I will sink under the applications. I am convinced of that. We will get far more people who will be prepared to make that leap," he said.