AS I left the house on Tuesday to go and give some of my colleagues their weekly kicking - office five-a-side football is the politically correct description - the debate on the referendum white paper was getting under way.

Alistair Darling, leader of the niet campaign, was picking on the matter of improved childcare and claiming that the Scottish government already has the devolved power to deal with childcare, yet has not made the changes being proposed.

As I got into the car, discussion was raging on Radio Two's Jeremy Vine Show as caller after caller made claims about having been subjected to legalised stealing by the Royal Bank of Scotland. Given that Darling was involved in bailing out that organisation a few years ago, I would like to think that even he might be a bit embarrassed about the juxtaposition of that debate taking place while he was seeking to offer economic lessons to Scots.

All the more so because his argument regarding the Scottish economy seems to be the equivalent of a parent giving a child pocket money and then, on the basis they provide the bed and board, telling the child what to do with it. The Scottish Government's argument has always been that Scots see the world in a different way and, if in control of the whole pot of money the country generates, would seek to have it distributed rather differently.

All of which I find easy enough to go along with but it would be a rather more credible argument if it was not for an on-going example of the Scottish Government, when it has equivalent power to that of Westminster over Holyrood, allowing near identical behaviour to take place on their doorstep.

In essence, the allocation of the equivalent of pocket money with an insistence on having a veto on how it is used keeps coming up as the sportscotland modus operandi.

Governing bodies of minority sports in Scotland complain about their lack of autonomy when it comes to being able to take the decisions they believe necessary for their development.

Those running community projects say that sportscotland will provide a sufficiently large share of the funding for a project so that they can then dictate how it is run.

Even those critical of the quango feel forced to issue press releases declaring a gratitude for the support received from an organisation that is now so large that a senior figure in one sport's governing body said earlier this year that there are five layers of officials between him and the head of sportscotland.

Any failure to make such an acknowledgement is seized upon rapidly by the sportscotland media police. A recent report from the USA suggested there are now five times as many spin doctors working there than journalists; it feels as if it could soon the same is the case here.

Sportscotland seem to have played a part in appointing executives who have no background in the sports they are now running. The same applies to umpteen sportscotland-appointed partnership managers, if that is the right term, because there seem to be many different job descriptions for those doing the link work.

Another executive on a sports governing body told me recently that he believed there is a determination that all dissent is silenced until after the Commonwealth Games and, by extension, after the referendum.

Not that much in the way of dissent is likely. All concerned seem terrified of sticking their heads above the parapet for fear of what they perceive to be threats of a withdrawal, or at least reduction, of what is pretty much their only source of funding from a body that looks increasingly like a vast branch of the civil service.

It is that last element that makes all of this most disconcerting for those of us who are inclined towards Scots taking, rather then being given, more responsibility for themselves.

It is only six years ago that the SNP pledged to abolish sportscotland in its run-up to taking power in 2007, only to make a u-turn as soon as it came into power. We were told then that there would be significant changes, not least with the headquarters shift from The Gyle on the outskirts of Edinburgh to a new site in Glasgow, with the result that huge sums were spent on severance packages for those employees who were unwilling to make the move.

Time and time again people in sports governing bodies privately point to the fact that The Gyle appears essentially unchanged in terms of usage, while also noting that many of those who received big pay-outs are back working in Scottish sport. I have consequently, in this column, repeatedly called for an audit of what is now spent on administration. Meanwhile, debate goes on over the way that claimed participation figures do not relate to the real experience of those involved in active sport.

Just like the Scottish Government, Scottish sports governing bodies want control of the whole of the pot that should be theirs, so that they can identify their own priorities and spend accordingly.

It is unfortunate for the nationalist cause that their failure to address the situation on their own doorstep undermines their own case on a national scale.