Team sports are expected to move up the pecking order for public investment when Sportscotland reveals its distribution of funding later this month, which will illustrate a push for longer-term returns that deviates from the medals-or-bust mantra of UK Sport.

With around £12 million in government cash to distribute through its grants to governing bodies, as well as the support services provided through the Institute of Sport, the agency has been given the green light to opt for a significant change of tack with women's football among the expected beneficiaries of a dual emphasis on achieving success and delivering wider societal returns.

"We have had to make some tough decisions," director of high performance Mike Whittingham admitted, despite pressure which is understood to have been exerted on Sportscotland to cut its budget in the wake of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. Whittingham is also grappling with an estimated 28 per cent increase in proposed expenditure from the sports who submitted requests for cash in the current spending review.

However, the policy shift comes at a moment of strength for the Stirling-based Institute, which contributed to a record medal haul at the Commonwealth Games as well as taking a central role in Great Britain & Northern Ireland's curling successes at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, bucking a trend which many argue has been underpinned by UK Sport's obsessive pursuit of success in individual disciplines.

"Historically, the UK has never done that well at team sports," says Whittingham, who moved from UK Sport nine years ago. "Even in English cricket, it's up one moment and down the next.

"We're driven by investment principles. We reviewed these and let sports knew what they were before Glasgow. It's medals on the world stage at targeted events, which are Olympics, Paralympics and Commonwealth Games for us. And then Scots on Team GB and Scots on UK Sport's Lottery-funded programmes. Those are the headline goals. In June, we started a discussion with our board on team sports: do we want to treat them the same and follow down the same road as UK Sport? And the answer was no."

Although his London-based counterparts recently undertook a public consultation on whether to shift some of their Lottery-funded budget to sports like basketball, which are longer shots for medals but provide secondary spin-offs at grassroots level, the overwhelming response was to keep constant and carry on as before. There may eventually be some subtle shifts post-Rio, UK Sport sources claim, but not until the incoming government allocates a budget to cover the build-up to Tokyo 2020.

Scotland, for now at least, will go its own way with a looser target that will encourage collective success. "That's defined for us as top six at a Commonwealth Games or the top 20 per cent of the world rankings," Whittingham affirmed, a parameter that presently encloses Scotland's footballers, male and female, as well the men's cricket side. "I think proactively we've done something different to what the other home nations have done, certainly what UK Sport hasn't done."

Domestically, that could spell doom for the like of table tennis, canoeing and sailing who will struggle to make the numbers work to fit this more holistic strategy while the likes of rugby league and handball, with minimal imprint, will remain out of mind.

"We've looked at women's football and we think there's a great chance for us to work collaboratively to get a great result in 2021-22, where we think the women can qualify for the World Cup. They aspire to go through the Europeans first and we want to help them on that journey. But we want to look longer-term to provide opportunity for women's football to grow."

Yet the currency of team accomplishment will - no doubt with some controversy - earn some a reprieve and extra time to expand. Scotland's netballers, despite performances at the Commonwealth Games which show how far off the true elite they sit, are set to land substantial backing headed into this year's world championships - with an eventual objective of making the top six at the Commonwealth Games in 2018. While the nation's women's hockey squad, whose full-time status delivered only a quarter-final spot in Glasgow, is also to retain support up to Gold Coast.

"We want to be seen to be consistent," Whittingham confirmed. "We're under scrutiny and we want to be seen as fair and consistent in applying the same investment principles across all sports, whether you're a table tennis player or a hockey player.

"But the start is that team sports are different but they're important to Scotland. It's not about one medal. It's about 15 medallists. Say Scotland's women get to the (hockey) semi-finals in 2018 and win a bronze medal.

"The impact of 15 or 16 medallists is enormous because we then use them to inspire and generate more interest and participation. It's not about performance outcomes. We see team sports as a mechanism to improve the health and wellbeing of the nation."