SO the White Paper, determining the shape of the BBC’s Charter – its right to broadcast over the next few years – was published earlier this week. And it seems that the well-regimented army of actors, directors, writers and other creatives, scheming in their North London fastnesses, has scored a significant battle victory over the free-market fundamentalism of the media minister John Whittingdale.

There will be no ministerial instructions to shift Strictly (or the Ten O’Clock News) around in the schedules. No “top-slicing” of the licence fee to give to commercial competitors. A 10-year guarantee of a licence fee, raised in line with inflation. And much praise of the BBC’s “distinctive” qualities – as a source of invaluable “soft power” globally, and as a support for creative industries at home.

The accursed “media luvvies” – I speak here as a fully paid-up member – have won over yet another Tory government assault on the BBC. Break out the Bolly, Bolsheviks!

But I also speak as an Indy-minded Scot. It’s not so automatically easy for us to join in any celebration that sees “the integrity of the BBC” defended.

Everyone, from Lord Patton down, has accepted the existence of the general problem – that BBC Scotland is deficient in the services it provides to its audiences. It’s disappointing, though not remotely surprising, that the White Paper hasn’t directly responded to the SNP government’s call for an extra TV and radio channel for Scotland. Instead, they are shuffling the bureaucratic blocks. Scotland is to be a “centre for excellence” for factual television production. We will, along with every other “nation” of the isles, have a drama commissioning editor. In honour of our manifest national talent for clownishness, a comedy commissioner is also to be based in Glasgow. There will be (mysteriously non-specific) “additional funding to improve dedicated services in the nations”.

And finally, Scotland will have a “sub-board” within the new “unitary board” that is to replace the BBC Trust, as the broadcaster’s governing body. Will the sub-board become a cupboard? Well, I guess the more restive we Jocks are, the less dimly we blip on the vast post-imperial radar screen installed at Langham Place. (I’ve actually seen it: brass fittings, steam valves, a black-marble death masque of Lord Reith implanted in the centre. Really, a thing of beauty).

So lots of opportunities, it would appear, for the Scottish creative classes. But let’s look at what exists and needs to improve. Is there a problem with the way the BBC represents the actual condition and status of Scotland to itself?

Televisually, you bet there is.

I bought a copy of the Radio Times, for the first time in years, to survey the corporation’s output for the coming week. Now the mag itself is evidently read by, shall we say, a certain demographic – ads for comfy chairs and chairlifts (four pages of that), Sheaffer pens, handmade leather shoes, vacuum-packed steaks, hearing aids... So that might perhaps explain a bit why the world of TV that it rendered up seemed like a giant promo for Themepark UK.

But not that much.

The Cumberbatch glowers from the cover as Richard III, with the Shakespeare celebrations thundering on through the schedule via documentaries and comedies.

The Great British Sewing Bee, and Dan Cruickshank’s At Home With The British are both debuting next week. These will no doubt complement the Union Jack-frenzy to be unleashed by both the UK’s entry in Eurovision, and the Queen’s 90th birthday celebration programming.

OK. Britain exists. We get it. Any respite to be found in new drama? Not much. Preceding a feature saying “goodbye to Peggy Mitchell” and situated a little further north in the general London area, Radio Times asks us to say hello to Love, Nina. This is the everyday story of a nanny who serves the literati of the metropolis. Frayn! Bennett! Tomalin! (I’ll allow you to make a bet that the show doesn’t feature Helena Bonham-Carter. You just lost!).

I could go on, and further ruin your morning (for example there is, almost spookily, a full documentary about Jimmy Hill on next Wednesday). But let’s go instead to the pages which actually feature the full week’s schedules of all the BBC TV and radio channels, including BBC Scotland.

What I’m looking for, without apology, is programming which presumes the same centrality of Scottish culture, society and history, as everything else flagged up in this schedule has done for predominantly England/London so far.

On TV at least, it’s so scrappy. Yes, Scotland has its daily news, current affairs and sports furniture. But we seem entirely absent from the dayglo leisurelands of morning BBC television. Stunningly, there is no Scottish-themed item on the highbrow BBC4 channel over the whole coming week – not one (although at least the Welsh slipped in with their crime thriller, Hinterland).

And as for BBC Scotland’s “feature” output... Apart from River City, the Beechgrove Garden and the rural programme Landward, this is all I could find: two historical documentaries, covered in dust – one about Scotland’s first shale-oil explorations, the other about Scotland’s War At Sea. A contemporary investigation titled (I wish I was joking) Britain’s Puppy Dealers Exposed.

And finally, a nature series about the “wild heart” of the Highlands. Historically cleared-away humans, as ever, not much part of the story here.

No doubt Pacific Quay panjandrums will rush at me, flapping A4s of commissioned programming over the last 12 months or so. And of course BBC Alba is there to serve the Gaeltacht.

If you actively seek it out, particularly with shows like Eorpa, you can find a little more serious coverage of the country.

So when a White Paper on the BBC acknowledges it has to give ‘greater focus to undeserved audiences in the regions’, it seemed reasonable to see how we are currently served in Scotland. In terms of TV, it is frankly pitiful. (Radio Scotland gets a half-pass).

Now, even if you want to drive Scotland to nation-statehood, you can still want to defend the principles and practices of the BBC. The SNP government’s offer, in their own independence White Paper, bent over backwards to try to maintain some kind of connection with the corporation.

It’s not just about access to Strictly and Doctor Who. Scots tend to approve of well-run public services.David Clark, who was a special advisor to the late Robin Cook, has written (in a report for the TUC) that the thing which maddens successive Tory governments is just how successful and beloved the BBC is. “Public bodies are supposed to be repositories of mediocrity and waste,” he writes. But the excellence of the BBC “punctures the myth that markets are always better at allocating resources and giving people what they want”.

Hear hear. Nothing in all this stops me dreaming of an SBC that can match up the same practices of excellence, with the aspirations and realities of an independent Scotland – its citizens needing to be “informed, educated and entertained” as the world beckons.

But let’s use this period of mildly increased resource and attention from The Great Centre, to aim at a step-change in how we represent Scotland. To borrow some language from another part of the Scottish national conversation: when you get the extra powers, BBC Scotland, show us that you’re using them.