Michael Kelly: Glasgow Games success is about more than medals

AS ONE Games closes another one prepares to open.

The Winter Olympics have just ended in euphoria as Canada tops the medal table and Jacques Rogge, president of the IOC, congratulates Vancouver on creating a unique atmosphere by its "extraordinary embrace" of the event.

In couple of days, Glasgow will begin the serious countdown to 2014 by unveiling the new brand identity of the Commonwealth Games to be held here just four years from now.

The criteria for judging the success of such international sporting events are well rehearsed. First, the venues must be ready on time. Glasgow is ahead of schedule. Secondly, the events must run smoothly. Glasgow, handling four Old Firm shoot-outs a year, is unfazed by the prospect of getting a few races started on time. And the city will fall over itself to offer hospitality to athletes and supporters alike. We love our bread and circuses.

So there is no doubt that, by these standards, the Games will be hailed as a great success and will further enhance our international reputation.

But that is not going to be enough. Legacy. That's the rub. 'What the long-term benefits will be' is now the biggest heading on any Games application form. It is promised by all cities, achieved by few. Many simply pay lip-service to it. Athens never thought it through properly and is left with derelict buildings. Beijing didn't care. It was all about image. But Glasgow will be particularly harshly judged if it fails this test.

There is a big public investment riding on this. Some 450 million is the budget for the Games. But securing the event has triggered millions more in public expenditure. It guaranteed the funds for the extension to the M74 for a start. Despite significant returns generated by the Glasgow Garden Festival and the year as the European City of Culture, there is a chatterati in Glasgow highly sceptical about the value of image-building and these flagship projects. Bleedin' hearts can never see the big picture sketched out by the bravehearts.

The launch of another new logo is bound to set the critics off again. Certainly Glasgow seems addicted to new city logos. We've gone through umpteen since I first inflicted Mr Happy on everyone and he smiled down on us in 1983.

This new one is entirely justified to promote the event – and indeed, is required by the Commonwealth Games Federation. Nevertheless it will given a further opportunity for complaint to those who claim that Glasgow spends needless resources airbrushing its image, la David Cameron, in order to gloss over, la David Cameron, the failure to provide answers to the real problems of ordinary people.

I've never understood what the dichotomy is supposed to be – in Glasgow, not Cameron. None of the efforts put into rebuilding Glasgow's image was an attempt to fool people that they city did not, does not, have major social problems. But its bad external image made these problems, particularly unemployment more difficult to solve.

Image building is an essential part of urban regeneration. The way the Commonwealth Games are planned for the East End makes that link explicit. Although they are Glasgow's Games, the focus will be on the most deprived parts of the city. Formerly bustling areas like Dalmarnock now see factory sites that used to employ thousands cleared and serving as parking spaces for football supporters – a telling metaphor of decline.

People here have lost heart. Problems of unemployment and health are generational. The offer of the thousand jobs being created by the actual staging of the Games is not going to be enough to trigger the social revolution that is necessary to bring these huge tracts of Glasgow back into the community. Many of the most unfortunate are beyond self-help and the job offers will pass them by.

Realistically the target must be the younger generation. It will respond to the wave of optimism and confidence that a successful Games will trigger. But that quickly dissipates once the circus leaves town. We cannot wait until the closing ceremony to find ways of harnessing the enthusiasm.

Development opportunities will be created by the investment being pumped in. If the job opportunities that arise in the longer term out of these are to go to local people then the training programmes must match the construction programmes. And the training cannot simply be in job-specific skills. What defines most unemployed in deprived areas is their lack of soft skills. Vicky Pollard is all too real. Training has to install that raft of social graces, an ability to communicate, friendliness, and optimism that allows you to get on with other people.

So we are talking about schools. We also need the Department of Works and Pensions to develop a social mission for Glasgow. Again, it is essential the Scottish Government becomes more specific in the outcomes it seeks from the Games. Sure, its focus has got to be national not urban. But wanting "to inspire the people of Scotland to be more active and for people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities to take part in physical activity and sport" is pathetically vague and unverifiable. It's a cop-out.

Thankfully at the local level the city has securely tied the outcomes it wants to see from the Games to the agenda of the existing Clyde Gateway project. Nothing could be more specific and quantifiable than its aims – 20,000 new jobs, 10,000 new homes, the attraction of 20,000 new people to the east end and the creation of 400,000 square metres of new business space.

Significantly, few involved in delivering the Games talk in terms of sporting success. Unlike Canada, Scotland is not going to top the medal table. The prize is much greater – delivering a future to a generation of young Glaswegians. The city and the government must keep their eyes fixed on that to justify the huge commitment of public resources.