A reader complained to the press watchdog over a daily newspaper’s reporting of a political opinion poll.

John Garrity went to the Independent Press Standards Organisation after The Scotsman covered a survey on the support for Scottish independence.

In an opinion piece, it reported that this poll revealed a reversal of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum result “so the 55-45 split [was] now in favour of independence rather than against it”.

But Mr Garrity claimed the Edinburgh-based daily had distorted the findings of the survey, which was undertaken by Panelbase and commissioned by Business for Scotland.

The Scotsman has historically been a pro-Unionist title and backed the ‘No’ campaign in the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence

Complaining under Clause 1 of the Editors’ Code of Practice, he said the poll did not find a “55-45 split” as reported, but revealed that 51pc were for Scottish independence, 42pc were against it and 7pc said that they did not know their position.

Mr Garrity claimed The Scotsman’s failure to make clear that the respondents who had been undecided were excluded from the analysis rendered the article a misleading report of the poll’s findings.

In response, The Scotsman denied it had distorted the poll or contained any significant inaccuracies.

It said it was a “well-established convention” to exclude “don’t knows” from political opinion polls and provided several examples of where other publications had reported polls in this way.

It added that the article was a comment piece and based upon an agency’s summary and interpretation of the poll, which stated it had found “record high” support for Scottish independence at 55pc.

During IPSO’s investigation, The Scotsman offered to publish a clarification making clear the poll did not reflect the 7pc of respondents who were undecided.

Mr Garrity said this would resolve the matter to his satisfaction, and the full resolution statement can be read here.