£140m of Scottish Government funding granted to councils for free childcare is not being spent on the programme, according to an official report.

A government review of early learning and childcare (ELC) found that £329m has been given or is expected to be given to local authorities between 2014-15 and 2016-17 to fund the policy.

However, the report states that councils have only allocated or plan to allocate £189m to free childcare provision.

Under the 2014 Children and Young People (Scotland) Act, all three and four-year-olds and vulnerable two-year-olds are entitled to 600 funded hours of childcare a year.

Cosla, the body which represents 28 of Scotland's 32 councils, said elements of the Scottish Government report were "misleading", and that the report itself admitted the projected funding gap was "an overestimate".

The report states: "In the first three years after implementation of the Children and Young People Act (CYP), 2014-15 to 2016-17, the Scottish Government has provided local authorities with an additional £329 million to cover the additional revenue costs of the ELC elements of the CYP during those three years.

"During the same period, final net expenditure figures from 2014/15, provisional outturn figures for 2015/16 and budget estimates for 2016/17 indicate that local authorities spent or plan to spend an additional £189 million on pre-primary education over the three years compared to continuing spend at 2013/14 levels."

The Scottish Government plans to increase funded hours from 600 to 1140 by the end of the parliamentary session.

Cosla insists that focusing on the funding gap would be a "crude assessment" which ignores the "success story" that councils have managed to provide 600 funded hours of childcare.

A Cosla spokesman said: "This study highlights the complexities in delivering the expansion of childcare.

"However, we are very concerned that there are parts of this report that paint a very misleading picture and do not reflect the reality of what is happening on the ground.

"This is a crude assessment and it would be extremely unhelpful if this becomes the focus and detracts from the overriding success story that councils have delivered 600 hours."

The group also pointed out that in the same report, the Scottish Government highlighted the failings of its own figures.

The report states: "Local authorities have been subject to significant budgetary pressures and have sought to constrain expenditure on many areas of activity and it is possible that, in the absence of the CYP Act, expenditure would have declined...

"To the extent that this is the case, the gap between additional funding and additional expenditure reported here will be an overestimate."

Campaign group Fair Funding For Our Kids say the extra funding could have been used to improve current provision.

Volunteer campaigner for the group Carolyn Lochhead said: "The Scottish Government says its childcare policy is about helping parents get back to work.

"But our research shows that almost two thirds of funded nursery places are for half days only. Most parents can't leave work at lunchtime to take their children somewhere else.

"So our question is: why wasn't this extra funding used to make nursery provision suitable for working parents?"

The Scottish Government believes around 136,000 children are eligible to receive free childcare each year.