The number of nursery inspections has dropped by a third in Scotland over the past five years, new figures show.

Education secretary John Swinney released the figures as part of a parliamentary written answer to Scottish Labour's education spokesman Daniel Johnson.

Inspections by Education Scotland have fallen from 201 in the 2011-12 school year to 135 in 2015-16.

Scottish Labour say at the current rate of inspections it would take 18 years to visit all 2449 nurseries in the country.

Nursery inspection numbers:

Johnson said: "These are worrying figures. Inspections in our nurseries should be regular and thorough because so much of the work we can do to cut the attainment gap between the richest and the rest can begin there.

"Instead it looks the SNP is happy to turn a blind eye and provide the bare minimum.

"That isn't good enough - we have heard a lot of warm words from the SNP government about its commitment to education and cutting the attainment gap, but the actions of the government suggest otherwise.

"Education Scotland as an agency has been criticised as dysfunctional in recently months - we need clarity as to why these inspection rates are falling."

A spokeswoman for the Scottish Government said: "Ensuring a high quality experience for children is the key objective of our expansion of early learning and childcare in Scotland.

"Quality is one of the four underpinning principles of this expansion and is a key issue we are consulting on through the Blueprint for 2020.

"Education Scotland, Care Inspectorate, local authorities and a highly qualified and diverse workforce are all essential as we continue our work to almost double free early learning and childcare by 2020."