A consultation on changes to how schools are run "excluded" many parents, according to an umbrella group of parent teacher councils.

The Scottish Parent Teacher Council (SPTC) conducted a survey of its membership as part of its response to a Scottish Government consultation on education reforms.

The organisation said it received around 840 responses.

Parents complained to the SPTC that the consultation was "extremely difficult" to complete with the vast majority of respondents skipping the questions on changes to school governance.

The Scottish Government is proposing to give head teachers more autonomy in running their individual schools as well as creating new regional education boards to work across multiple council areas.

Detailed plans are expected to be laid out by the education secretary John Swinney later this year.

In the introduction to its consultation response, the SPTC said: "While we gathered more than 800 responses, the majority of respondents skipped the questions about the governance review.

"This in itself communicates a great deal about the perspective of parents on this consultation.

"The feedback received regarding the consultation events has similarly indicated that parents who attended (and are therefore by definition motivated and engaged) have generally been left puzzled and feeling excluded from the debate.

"It is ironic that a document which has as one of its stated aims that parents should be more empowered in fact excluded very many parents from participation."

It added: "The consultation presumed high levels of knowledge about the existing governance model in Scottish education and used language which would be familiar only to those working in the sector.

"It is tantamount to expecting a patient with a broken leg to understand the inner workings and operational structures of the various NHS services they might encounter: A&E, orthopaedics, anaesthesia, radiology, physiotherapy to name just a few.

"In reality, we know that the patient relies on the NHS to organise and provide the services needed to treat their injury, just as parents rely on schools and local authorities to organise and provide the educational support their child needs in the school system."

The Scottish Government said it is focused on improving the country's education system to raise it to a world leading standard.

A spokesman said: "That is why we are reviewing school governance and over 1000 parents, teachers, head teachers, members of the general public and organisations including local authorities and unions have responded to our consultation which closed on January 6.

"We will consider these consultation responses as we move to put schools and communities at the heart of the education system and ensure that decisions about the life of schools are driven by the schools themselves.

"As part of this process we have already committed to consult on a new Education Bill in early 2017."