The central tenet of the Patten commission recommendations on the RUC is for the retention of a unitary police force - just as the Republic has a unitary force in the Garda Siochana - but "decentralised" so it is more responsive to the community.
The report by the Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland, chaired by Mr Chris Patten, recognises the basic importance of the local police officer who acts as both contact and reassurance for the local community and a vital intelligence gatherer.
This basic philosophy was lost in many of the 1970s and 1980s reports on policing, according to many senior police officers in both the UK and the Republic.
Although the "politics" of the Patten report has tended to dominate the debate on his commission's 128-page document, many of the recommendations constitute reforms to policing that could be applied to good effect to any force - including the Garda Siochana.
Some of them - on regionalisation, restructuring, training, the use of the best available computerised information systems and the relationship with the community - have already been, or are in the process of being, implemented in the Garda.
There have been several reports in the Republic and the UK on policing, including the 1996 Fundamental Review of the RUC. Many of the points covered in them are referred to in the Patten report. But Mr Patten's report takes many issues previously raised in regard to policing and makes radical new suggestions which are likely to attract attention from police around the world.
The document seeks to establish a police force based firmly in the community and enjoying all the best available high-tech support services and slimmer, more responsive, management.
It recognises the importance of the local police officer, whose pivotal role has tended to be diminished over the past decades as a result of rationalisation and station closures.
The importance of having local police with sound local knowledge was one of the lessons which emerged from the triple murder of Ms Imelda Riney, her infant son Liam and Father Joe Walsh in east Clare in 1994. Senior gardai later remarked that the reappearance of a dangerous young man, Brendan O'Donnell, in the community could have been noticed earlier if there was better neighbourhood policing.
The Patten report says that policing "with the community" should be a core function of the police service.
It states: "Every neighbourhood or rural area should have a dedicated policing team with lead responsibility for policing its local area." It adds that, where practicable, policing teams should patrol on foot.
Almost all officers in the Garda concur that a police force's good relationship with a local community is absolutely essential to effective policing - and the report agrees with this.
As part of achieving this object, the report recommends that the RUC's "forbidding" police stations - which have been designed primarily to withstand bomb and rocket attacks - should have, so far as possible, the "appearance of ordinary . . . less forbidding" buildings.
Given a continued decline in terrorism, the armoured police Land-Rovers should be replaced with ordinary cars bearing the NIPS motto.
One of the Patten recommendations which has come in for criticism is the proposal for 29 (25 based on local district council areas, and four in Belfast) policing districts, each with a district police partnership board. This has raised alarm among unionists because of the prospect of Sinn Fein's elected representatives having an input into policing services.
However, Mr Patten argues that there is a great need in Northern Ireland "for robust arrangements for accountability at local level".
The report rejects the notion of separate regional police forces, which many countries have. It points to the position in Belgium which has hundreds of local police forces whose inefficiencies were pointed up in the inquiry into the activities of the accused paedophile murderer, Marc Dutroux. The report opts instead for a "decentralised but unified police service".
It also recommends a slimmer police headquarters bureaucracy, with the current 12 assistant chief constables reduced to six. It cites survey findings from the RUC's own officers who complained about lack of dialogue between regional offices and headquarters. Also, more than 80 per cent of RUC superintendents backed the notion of greater decentralisation.
This is in keeping with the Garda Siochana's policy of regionalisation, which has been under way in recent years with the appointment of regional commanders and a reduction in the number of assistant commissioners at Garda Headquarters.
Another contentious recommendation which also reflects developments in the Garda Siochana is the amalgamation of the Special Branch and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), the equivalent of the Garda National Bureau of Investigation (GNBI).
Senior police sources say this is not a dissolution of the RUC Special Branch - which, the report points out, is often described as a "force within a force". Such a move would not be supported by either senior gardai or RUC. The report points out that in the contacts with the Garda, the London Metropolitan Police and the FBI in the United States, everyone paid tribute to the work of the RUC Special Branch in fighting terrorism.
The report's proposal is for the branch's amalgamation into a broader CID structure under the control of a single assistant chief constable. This makes sense, the report argues, because there has been a major decline in terrorism or "political violence" and an increase in "ordinary" crime. The report suggests there is a concern - backed up by evidence on both sides of the Border - that former terrorists are drifting into drug trafficking.
The amalgamation of Special Branch and CID under a single command would reflect what has already taken place in the Garda Siochana. In the Republic the Special Branch, GNBI, the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation, the Garda National Drugs Unit and Criminal Assets Bureau are all under the command of the assistant commissioner with responsibility for crime and security.
The report points out that in the RUC, the Special Branch had a virtual hegemony over many resources like information technology and surveillance while CID is under-resourced in these areas.
The report also strongly supports broader and longer training for recruits. This is entirely in line with the policy introduced several years ago in the Garda Siochana which now has a two-year training and study period for recruits.
It recommends a full training college, referring to the example of the Garda College at Temple more. The report describes training in the RUC as too limited and too military in nature. It strongly recommends there be less time spent on "drilling" for recruits.