Badminton Scotland's leading ­official has called for the running of the British game's elite programme to be overhauled following its latest failure on the world stage.

In an exclusive interview with Herald Sport, Anne Smillie, chief executive of the Scottish governing body, has chosen to speak out against what looks like a one-size-fits-all approach to developing players after a dismal collective performance at last week's world championships.

Relations between her organisation and its British counterpart have increasingly soured in recent years because of the pressure being placed on leading players to base themselves at the national head­quarters in Milton Keynes.

Funding is effectively being withheld from those who refuse to uproot from Scotland, despite the evidence showing that, in doing so, they are moving from a system that works to one that fails miserably.

The evidence that players are better served by staying in Scotland is most obvious in the women's game, where Kirsty Gilmour has just replaced her now-retired Scottish compatriot Susan Egelstaff as the clear No.1 in the British rankings, while the Scottish system has also produced Imogen Bankier, a world championship silver medallist.

Following her appearance at last year's Olympics where she and English partner Chris Adcock - they reached that world championship final together a year earlier - were surprise first-round losers, Bankier made clear her dissatisfaction with the Milton Keynes regime by quitting to return home.

She followed in the footsteps of another world championship silver medallist, Robert Blair, who controversially quit his native Scotland in 2001 because joining the English team would enhance his career prospects. He returned to the Scottish fold three years ago.

In spite of edicts from the British sporting authorities that funding should follow athletes rather than the other way around, attempts have effectively been made to blackmail Bankier, Blair and Gilmour into training in England.

"Scotland provided 50% of the London team," said Smillie, "and is likely to be well represented in the British team for Rio, so why should we have to be at such a financial disadvantage?

"The British Badminton Programme failed to win a medal in either the Beijing or London Olympics. It received funding for the Rio cycle on the basis of an untried system, a system which is clearly failing if last week's world championships results are anything to go by. No British athlete got past the second round."

According to Smillie, the treatment of Bankier, a world championship silver medalist two years ago, is the prime illustration of what is wrong with the system. She allowed details of her reasons for quitting the British programme to be made public, frustrated by the way she was being forced to spend her life in Milton Keynes. "She was forced out of the programme last year because she did not believe the system would allow her to develop her full potential but was told she had to comply with it or leave," Smillie pointed out. "She was given no say in her tournament or training programme."

Gilmour, a teenager from Bothwell, has made remarkable progress in the past year, combining her sporting career with her university studies. Yet she has been given far less by way of funding than her status should entitle her to, simply because she has opted to stay in Scotland; largely because of the specialist support on offer.

Gilmour is, incidentally, listed on the Badminton England website as one of British Badminton's elite players but is described as being No.3 in the British senior rankings and No.238 in the world rankings. She is, in fact, 36th in the world rankings and almost 50 places above England's leading player.

"She is Britain's top women's singles player, and has been financially penalised because she will not commit to full-time training in Milton Keynes, the so-called world-class performance centre.

"The irony is that Gilmour trains full-time at the National Badminton Academy in Scotstoun under the Scottish head coach, Yvette Yun Luo, exactly as did Susan Egelstaff, Britain's women's singles representative at the London Olympics. There is no women's singles coach in Milton Keynes."

Scotland's outstanding team performance at this year's Sudirman Cup, where they won all their matches to top their group - placing them 13th overall in the world - reinforced the quality of the work being done at their Scotstoun headquarters in stark contrast to the British set-up. England declined to send a team to the event.

"Surely it is time for UK Sport and the board of British Badminton to acknowledge that Scotland has an excellent training facility and a world-class coach, and to admit that the Milton Keynes set-up is not working," said Smillie. "The team at Milton Keynes has no proven track record. Neither the performance director nor the coaching staff can claim to have world-class credentials, yet the hopes of the sport, not just for Rio but for all major events, lie in their hands."

Anita Sherwood, head of performance at Badminton England, said they had no comment to make on Smillie's observations.