Teenage years are grubby years. You only have to travel down to the high street to see the poor suffering youth hanging around outside off-licenses, bribing tramps into buying them cider, looking filthy, sniffing glue and having bad sex. Incapable of taking any sage advice, it always seemed that in this era when beating is illegal, the only cure was time. Then along came a quango called the Health Education Board for Scotland, or HEBS.

HEBS came up with some witty advertising, showing ba' faced wee girls throwing up, or the grinding embarrassment of teenage sex. It produced a music video about smoking that parodied a girl band and made it to number 39 the British charts. 'Think about it,' it said, and astonishingly they did. It managed to get children to mock each other with its slogans in the playground. The name HEBS became, surprisingly, synonymous with something trustworthy and smart.

Which is why the Scottish Executive has decided it will be renamed on 1 April, derailing ten years of work and the £20 million it cost to establish its brand. The Executive says it's because HEBS needs to be merged with the Public Health Institute for Scotland. The new name they have come up with is NHS Health Scotland, a bizarre and tautological horror that might as well say National Health Service Health National. It is also, I suspect, a grubby attempt to make our politicians look good.

While this has been going on, Jack McConnell has been leading a charge to make us a healthier country (certainly a charge worth making). Barely a week goes by without a new picture of him eating in a school canteen. In this, he's been joined by the Health Minister, Malcolm Chisholm, who may be unable to make his mind up about the war, but knows for a fact that too many bridies are bad for a citizen. All this was looking pretty good until a health expert told me: 'McConnell doesn't truly believe we can be a healthy country.'

Apparently there's a trick you can play in Scotland. Sit two of us down and get one to say, 'In ten years, we can get the Scots to eat better' to the other. Both will laugh.

The sharp end of McConnell's fight in this, as with many things, has been an advertising blitz. Agencies like Faulds and Barkers seem to have set up shop in the Executive's offices. With health, it has been pictures of men with bananas for phones, but campaigns have dealt with everything from driving safety to anti-flu measures. An advertisement dealing with domestic abuse was withdrawn when someone pointed out that, while we have nothing to be proud of, one in five Scottish men are not violent, misogynist thugs.

Criticism that the Executive's advertising budget has jumped from £2.8 million to £13 million in four years resulted last month in a decision to make an across-the-board cut of 25 per cent. It was all beginning to look a little ugly, with opposition politicians wondering whether this massive advertising effort was more about promoting the Executive than sorting out the country's ills. No one was sure whether the ads were making a difference and all that money was beginning to look worryingly extravagant.

Referring to an anti-drugs campaign that took account of a more tolerant attitude to cannabis, the expert I spoke to said: 'What does "Know the Score" really mean anyway? There's a suspicion that this is an enormously expensive way of announcing a change of policy.'

Despite the welts that this criticism has left on the Executive, Ministers aren't giving up and have turned their attention to poor little independent HEBS. They argue that the rebranding won't actually cost very much, and that 'the important thing' is not the brand, but 'the message carried by the advertising'. HEBS' reputation has grown to the point where its independence is resented. Its adverts are the best, resonating with the public because they were thought-out, measured and effective. The Executive wants the credit, for the NHS in the first instance, but ultimately for itself. 'And why not?' said one insider. 'We're the source, it's our cash, we want the credit.'

Ignoring the Orwellian dangers of a political leadership advertising that they care while waiting lists grow longer, it does actually matter. HEBS' great achievement was its success in setting itself aside from authority and actually connecting with the people it sought to engage. It is impossible to quantify that success beyond instinct, but the fact that children spent money on an anti-smoking single suggests a degree of success.

The contrast with the Executive telling us not to be racist between episodes of Coronation Street, or not to beat (or put up with being beaten by) our spouses during Footballers' Wives , neatly reveals the credibility gap. Whether HEBS' empathy will survive a white coat being hung around its shoulders remains to be seen.

I still like to believe McConnell is sincere in his healthy eating campaign; after all, no adult should have to return to the school canteen. But it's a facet of democracy that we don't ever entirely trust the motives of our elected officials. The Executive should leave HEBS alone. We don't need it to spell out who is paying for this advertising - we know we are.