THE jury remains out over whether the Commonwealth Games will deliver a lasting legacy for Glasgow and Scotland one year on, according to a new report.

Scottish Government researchers said there had been a number of short-term benefits as a result of the Glasgow 2014, which began with a glittering opening ceremony a year ago tonight at Celtic Park.

The sporting spectacle boosted the economy through creating jobs and infrastructure projects and led to widespread civic pride after the event was seen as an overwhelming success, the study found.

However, the researchers warned that it remains too early to say whether long-lasting benefits, such as achieving a sustained increase in participation in sport, tourism or business will ever be achieved.

The prospect of a legacy from Glasgow 2014 was used by politicians as justification for spending hundreds of millions of pounds on the 12-day event. The final bill was £543 million, almost 80 per cent of which came from public funds.

The report found that there were encouraging signs, with membership to sports clubs having risen and residents in Glasgow's East End, the area that saw the majority of funding, reporting greater satisfaction with their surroundings.

There is little international evidence that huge sporting events deliver long-term economic or health benefits for their hosts, and the report warned that the spectacles are "not a panacea" for long running social and economic challenges. It concluded: "The challenge will be extending and embedding these benefits to date in Scotland and Glasgow to secure lasting legacies into the future."

Professor Leigh Robinson, head of the School of Sport at the University of Stirling, said that Scotland would be bucking a long-established international trend if it was to see any meaningful sporting legacy from Glasgow 2014.

"These mega events are always justified on the grounds that health is going to improve in the long-term, but not one has ever achieved it and it's utterly without evidence," she said. "The first year is always the most positive, but I'd expect participation to drop off. For those who are not physically active, it's not going to get them away from the TV screen, onto a bike or out into a swimming pool.

"I loved the Glasgow games, they were fantastic and what they did for Glasgow in terms of profile and infrastructure probably justifies it in itself. But we should accept it for what it has managed to achieve."

Nicola Sturgeon will today visit Crownpoint Sports Complex in the East End of Glasgow, where she will mark the opening of the athletics track - moved from Hampden Park when it hosted the showpiece athletics events last summer.

The First Minister said the report showed that economic, cultural and regeneration benefits from the Games had been significant. She added: "Along with our partners, we’ve always been determined to ensure that there is a lasting legacy to the Games that starts in the East End of Glasgow and stretches well beyond. We now have 60 national legacy programmes in place with the latest, a leadership programme for young people called 33Sixty, being announced today.

"Through these schemes we are funding, encouraging and promoting programmes large and small in communities right around the country, and ensuring that the benefits of the Games will be felt for many years to come."