We were told Police Scotland would always have more than 17,200 officers keeping us safe, but tighter budgets have seen that fall to 16,600, with no suggestion that this might be temporary.
How does the public work out what that reduction means?
The Daily Record has had help this week from a whistleblower who works in traffic policing.
He was so alarmed by new proposals to cut 42 constables from that area and the knock-on effects that he got in touch and asked us to make it public.
If the proposals go ahead it could mean one car covering the whole country between 3am and 7am, no senior investigating officers on at those times to deal with fatal and other serious crashes, no tactical pursuit vehicles capable of chasing a stolen car or speeding, dangerous drivers.
The Scottish Police Federation is rightly up in arms, with support from opposition MSPs and motoring organisations.