Ms Sturgeon, who was First Minister at the time, was described as a "serious and diligent leader" but criticised for an overly centralised approach and found there was a "lack of trust" between Edinburgh and London which coloured the respective approaches to decision making.

Shortly after the release of the findings, the SNP MSP met with reporters in the Scottish Parliament.

Responding to suggestions she had allowed her desire for independence to affect her decision making Ms Sturgeon said: "I can't unfortunately do anything about people's perception. I can only deal in the reality

"Not all of you guys were covering the pandemic at the time but many of you were and, you know, we had all of these daily exchanges of views and I recognise in hindsight probably tiredness sometimes mad

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