No minutes were taken at a meeting between the First Minister and an EU commissioner over extending the payment deadline for farm payments, STV News can reveal.

In May the First Minister, rural affairs minister Fergus Ewing and EU commissioner Phil Hogan met at Sturgeon's official residence in Edinburgh.

The meeting was held just a month before the deadline for all Common Agricultural Payments (CAP) to be made by the Scottish Government to farmers.

If the deadline was breached the government would be liable to receive a fine up to £125m by the EU.

Following the meeting and discussions between Scottish Government officials and EU officials by email, the deadline was moved to October 15.

The lack of any formal records was discovered by STV News following a freedom of information request.

The failure to formally record the meeting was described as a "cock-up" by a Conservative MSP.

Alex Johnstone said: "This was one of the biggest crises to hit Scotland's farming industry in years.

"Yet the SNP didn't even bother to write down what was discussed at crucial meetings on CAP payments.

"This was a cock-up that starved Scotland's rural economy of hundreds of millions of pounds.

"Farmers expect more transparency and more effort when it comes to ensuring payments arrive on time."

The government IT system which has been blamed for the late payments to farmers has cost £178m.

In the last 18 months, the Scottish Government has spent £4.1m on overtime to try to clear the backlog.

The figure was revealed by Ewing in a letter to the Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP Mike Rumbles.

Rumbles said: "Farmers were forced to wait for months to receive crucial farm payments while overtime payments spiralled. These figures are staggering and lay bare the cost of this botched IT project.

"The legacy of this shambles is businesses out of pocket and a breakdown of trust between farmers and the Scottish Government at a time when there is real uncertainty in the sector over Brexit.

"This is the time that farmers need to have confidence that ministers will work in their best interests. How can the sector trust the SNP to deliver for them now?"

In response to the Scottish Conservatives' comments over the lack of formal minutes, Ewing said it was in fact the Tories who cause "chaos" and "uncertainty" in the farming sector.

Ewing said: "The Tories are the very last people to be giving lectures on European funding - their Brexit fiasco threatens to chop billions a year from Scotland's budget.

"And the EU funding they have agreed to match still leaves Scotland £750m short and has no guarantees beyond 2020.

"Scotland's farmers need the long-term certainty that continued CAP funding offers not the uncertainty, chaos and confusion offered by a Tory Government which still has no Brexit plan."