The Northern Secretary, Mr Peter Mandelson, is expected to implement most of the recommendations of the Patten Report on Policing in Northern Ireland in an announcement later this week.
However, some of the report's 175 recommendations are likely to be phased in over a period of several years. There will also be substantial early retirement or severance packages for RUC officers who leave the force, which is to be gradually reduced in strength from 13,000 to 7,500.
Discussions begin in Belfast today on a redundancy package. Negotiations will start between senior civil servants and representatives of the Police Federation and the Superintendents' Association on a severance deal expected to run into hundreds of millions.
Mr Mandelson is expected to give his response to the Patten recommendations in the House of Commons tomorrow afternoon. He has already signalled strongly that he will accept the recommendation to change the name of the force. The new name proposed by Patten was the Northern Ireland Policing Service, although there is speculation that this may be done gradually, with the RUC title being retained for a number of years.
The Patten recommendation to change the badge is also likely to be accepted, but there is speculation that for an initial period the crown will be placed beside the harp, instead of on top as at present.
Mr Mandelson has also signalled that another controversial recommendation, for greater local control of policing, will not be introduced immediately but will, as with some other thorny aspects of the report, be phased in over a period of time.
Ulster Unionist Party representatives will react angrily to the announcement, although privately they are unlikely to be surprised by its content. The position of the UUP leader, Mr David Trimble, will not be made any easier in the run-up to the February 12th meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council, especially given the lack of any firm evidence at this stage that the IRA proposes to decommission weapons ahead of that date.
Mr Mandelson is understood to have the full support of the Prime Minister in his approach. Senior sources said the Northern Secretary had "thought this through, recommendation by recommendation". It was not a matter of disbanding the force but introducing changes in response to changing times.
While the acceptance of most of the Patten recommendations will increase pressure on the republican movement to decommission as a means of saving the Executive and Mr Trimble's party leadership, republican sources stuck to the position that they had not agreed to a February deadline on weapons during the Mitchell review.
The decommissioning body headed by Gen John de Chastelain is due to issue its next report before the end of this month. Informed sources said it would be positive and would indicate that progress was being made, but there was little likelihood the general would be able to report the destruction of arms.
Rumblings in unionist ranks were evident at the plenary meeting of the Northern Ireland Assembly yesterday when Mr Duncan Shipley-Dalton, regarded as one of the more liberal members of the Assembly team, said he would not support his party remaining in government unless there was decommissioning by the end of this month.