THE convener of the Holyrood inquiry into the Alex Salmond affair has said she is "dismayed" by leaks of its conclusions to the media. 

SNP MSP Linda Fabiani spoke out following reports the committee has found Nicola Sturgeon misled parliament. 

Ms Fabiani did not dispute the accuracy of the reports, but raised concerns over the damage done to the value of the inquiry's work. 

A spokesman for the First Minister has accused the committee of resorting to "baseless assertion, supposition and smear". 

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The committee has reportedly stopped short of saying Ms Sturgeon "knowingly" misled parliament, the threshold for resignation under the Scottish Ministerial Code.

It is understood the inquiry split down party lines 5-4 on the issue, with only SNP MSPs clearing their leader.

The committee's full report is not published until Tuesday, but details have been leaked in advance.

It also reportedly concluded it is "hard to believe" Ms Sturgeon did not know of concerns about the former first minister's behaviour before November 2017, as she has claimed.

The cross-party committee is looking at how the Scottish Government bungled its probe into sexual misconduct allegations levelled against Mr Salmond in 2018.

The former First Minister had the exercise set aside in a judicial review by showing it had been tainted by apparent bias, a flaw that left taxpayers with a £512,000 bill for his costs.

In a statement, Ms Fabiani said: "Over the past 24 hours, accounts of the conclusions of the draft report of the Scottish Parliament’s Committee on the Scottish Government’s Handling of Harassment Complaints have been leaked to the media.

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"I am dismayed by the damage this may do to the value of the committee’s work which I have long hoped would improve the treatment of the complainers of sexual harassment.

"The selective leaking of particular committee recommendations has shifted the focus away from these goals, and the recommendations which seek to achieve it, and onto party political terrain which will likely frustrate, not assist, the women at the heart of this.

"The MSP’s Code of Conduct requires that all drafts of committee reports should be kept confidential unless the committee decides otherwise and it requires that members must not provide the media with off the record briefings on the general contents or line of draft committee reports because such disclosures of this kind can also seriously undermine and devalue the work of committees.”