The majority of the Patten commission recommendations have been welcomed by the Police Authority for Northern Ireland and the RUC Chief Constable, Sir Ronnie Flanagan.
However, the Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, objected to the proposed change of name and removal of emblems, and the proposal for district police partnership boards, where local political representatives would have an input to policing in their areas.
The federation accused Mr Chris Patten of allowing "terrorists" to walk "out of the front door of the prisons and into our police stations through the back door".
In a guarded welcome, the Chief Constable said: "My organisation is no stranger to hurt - 302 officers murdered, tens of thousands of officers injured and disabled, on behalf of others. If that hurt brings about - and this a tremendous `if' - the true new beginning that Patten envisages and seeks to facilitate; if that comes about, then perhaps that hurt has to be endured by us."
The Police Authority chairman, Mr Pat Armstrong, gave the report a broad welcome, saying it had endorsed changes proposed unsuccessfully by the authority over more than a decade. Mr Armstrong said some 70 proposals for improving accountability and control made in the past by the authority had been largely taken on board in the report.
"The authority backs any moves to strengthen police accountability. If that means a new oversight body with stronger powers, then so be it."
The authority offered no objections to the proposed name change. "A new name is not a judgment on the past but a move towards the future. The name is highly emotive but what really matters is a police service that is impartial, accountable and acceptable."
The authority had previously promoted the idea of closer relations with the Garda Siochana, and this was reflected in the report, he said.
Mr Armstrong warned that the operational independence of the Chief Constable - which was enshrined in UK law - "must be safeguarded with a strong, independent regulatory body as a buffer between government and the police".
The Police Federation said the report was "deeply dispiriting" for police. The federation did not believe there was any substantive argument for the name change.
"Its loss amounts to a repudiation of the professionalism, courage and sacrifice of our police officers. Indeed, in any other country we would be rewarded with a reaffirmation of the royal prefix in our name.
"Here in Northern Ireland, we are being stripped of it."
The federation said it was seriously disturbed by the proposal for district council input.
"The introduction of a new and unregulated dimension into a role in policing, if not into the actual police service, is a potential act of folly.
"We have an urgent need to eradicate vigilantism which, while masquerading as policing, terrorises whole communities. To regularise these activities into officially supplementing the police service through district council control will be to deliver these communities irretrievably into the clutches of evil people".