Sense prevails
It was, I believe, John Maynard Keynes who opined: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, Sir?鈥
The Sports Minister, Stewart Maxwell, presented himself as a true Keynesnian at Holyrood when he , contrary to the SNP manifesto.
Mr Maxwell contrived to sound less than abashed as he over-turned his party鈥檚 pledge to scrap the agency. Things, he said, had changed.
For one, the Commonwealth Games had now been won for Glasgow. This was no time, he argued, to be undermining the national agency - whose HQ will now be shifted from Edinburgh to Scotland鈥檚 largest city.
Opposition MSPs, while welcoming the switch, felt instead that the only change which had occurred lay in the minister鈥檚 mind. By their version, the previous policy had been daft - and sense had prevailed.
Technically, an agency goes as part of the package. The Institute of Sport鈥檚 board will be scrapped and merged with that of sportscotland. That allows a box to be ticked in the cull of quangos.
However, the institute is already to a large degree a subset of sportscotland. So it is scarcely a bonfire. More a minor glow on the horizon.
The SNP MSP Michael Matheson, who drafted the original policy, bravely suggested that sportscotland was being abolished 鈥渁s we know it.鈥
The chamber, I have to report, was less than impressed by that version.
Still, I incline towards the Keynesian approach. It is better, generally, to be flexibly correct than consistently wrong.
I'm 
Comments
I agree with Brian on this,
Although it is indeed admirable to try to cut uneccesary quangos from the Scottish public sector thus freeing up funds for more urgent needs. It is also prudent that when faced with cutting a quango because its the political thing to do and not the right thing to do, that this decision be overturned for the benefit of the public for which this quango exists.
As an SNP supporter I kind of feel that the SNP shot themselves in the foot on this one, as most of the electorate wouldnt have known or cared about Sport-scotland at the election time, and have given themselves a bloody nose when including this in the election manefesto.
Common sense has indeed prevailed. As a retired sports development officer working for a local authority in Scotland, I was grateful for the support that sportscotland gave me in fighting for more funds to be spent delivering and developing sport at a local level.
I was very concerned when the talk was of sports cash being given directly to local authorities. Unless it was very specifically ring fenced, and made to be accountable, it would have been spent on filling the potholes and putting up more CCTV cameras.
I fail to see exactly where the SNP have gone wrong on this. In their manifesto they pledged to abolish sportscotland. The SNP have done exactly that by overhauling the whole organisation and creating a more efficient one for the future of scottish athletes. The real problem is the name, i doubt when the SNP wrote their manifesto the one thing on their mind was 'i dont like the name, lets change that' it was always the way the organisation worked in question never what the name would be.
Labour in particular can not complain as the SNP have managed to work with sportscotland at a much quicker rate than they ever did. Resulting in another positive step forward by the Scottish Government.
Scrap Sport Scotland give the cash directly to sports clubs.At the moment most of the money goes to running the quango.One man and a couple of typists could handle this.
I am involved in running and coaching sport in Scotland and it is ridiculous how little actual funding gets to aid sport. SportScotland is responsible for this, don't send this monolith to Glasgow, send it back to it's original offices in St Colms St and make SportScotland trim it's staff and budget to fit.
Poster No 2, Please share with us the depth of your knowledge that gives you this incredible insight.Explain. Expound. Enlighten us.
Brian
I have no difficulty with this decision. I strongly suspect that as part of the deal Sportscotland will be a different organisation - slimmer and more focussed at local delivery. The main point I wish to make is in relation to the apalling behaviour of the Labour MSPs. Their conduct today was nothing short of ridiculous - and I am afraid, embarassing. They seem to be gettng away with it despite the good Mr Ferguson's attempts. I think that it is high time that someone influential - and impartial - like your goodself take them to task. Get the worst of them (eg Lord[!]Ffoulks)on the TV and ask them to give a reasoned explanation for their conduct. Just don't let them get away with it - for the good of our Parliament.
I voted SNP and im happy they have come to this decision.
What im less than happy about is the way they are trying to get out of it. I watched the SNP on Newsnight last night try and convince us they had actually done what they said they would do despite admitting they hadnt.
They would have more hope of convincing us the world is actually flat - how thick do they think we are? Seriously he came on national TV and lied to us to our faces when it made much more sense just to tell us the truth - mind boggling!
Have the SNP been borrowing Gordons Brown book of how to take a poll lead and position of stregnth and reverse it quickly?
I agree with Murdo about the quality of questions coming from Labour MPs yesterday - it was douwnright embarassing. Particularly the last lady whose name escapes me - the Minsiter at least rose above it and ignored her stupid question. Well done to the SNP for their work on Sportscotland
I can't agree enough with post #6 from Murdo. Their behaviour is nothing short of embarrassing. Unfortunately they are not just embarrassing themselves or their party but the more importantly the parliament. They must remember that our parliament is watched closely by many throughout the world - get a grip ladies and gentlemen.
Go get 'em Brian!
I can't agree enough with post #6 from Murdo. Their behaviour is nothing short of embarrassing. Unfortunately they are not just embarrassing themselves or their party but the more importantly the parliament. They must remember that our parliament is watched closely by many throughout the world - get a grip ladies and gentlemen.
Go get 'em Brian!
-too much spent on pen pushers.
-FAR too much money spent on elite athletes.
-we need to rebuild the playing fields that have been sold to developers by the corrupt councils.
Any money should go to grass roots. Literally!
The SNP are playing a clever political game. If they had scrapped Sportscotland and things went wrong leading up to and during the Commonwealth Games, then the SNP would have been blamed for the failure because they closed down Sportscotland. Instead the SNP have given themselves some breathing space and a scape goat in the shape of Sportscotland if things don't go according to plan.
I think if Alex Salmond ot Alex Neil had been handling the Newsnight Scotland interview last night their arguments would have been put much more robustly than those of the Sports Minister. The Minister sounded far too defensive when he had no need to be!
Also its a pity that the SNP hadn't changed the name of the organisation at the same time as they changed the structure then perhaps the usual dooleys wouldn't have been asking the stupid questions! Obviously there would have been costs associated with that and the government haven't a great deal of money to spare.
#8 Martin Mackay
I couldn鈥檛 agree more. This is a mere restructuring of Sportscotland. The organisation will have the same charter, the same budget and even the same name.
So for Stewart Maxwell to refuse to admit that the SNP government had U-turned and for Michael Matheson to brazenly contend that 鈥渢his is effectively the abolition of Sportscotland as we know it鈥 frankly beggars belief. It鈥檚 insulting.
Why can鈥檛 we get straight-talking from the SNP on things like this? Why couldn鈥檛 they just have admitted that following consultation they had realised that streamlining Sportscotland was far preferable to their manifesto pledge of scrapping it? People would have understood that. But this doubletalk is just bizarre.
I'm a long time SNP supporter, but Stuart Maxwell, bless him, does not come across well in the media at all. There are others of course, but in today's political climate, people dont want to see ministers floundering live on TV. He looks utterly dumbstruck whenever he's asked a question.