The chief executive of Creative Scotland has stepped down, following sharp criticism over funding decisions.

Janet Archer has announced she is leaving her role after five years at the organisation, which supports the arts and cultural sectors.

Arts groups hit out at Creative Scotland earlier this year for pulling the plug on funding for 20 organisations.

The decisions were part of Creative Scotland's regular funding awards for the period between 2018 and 2021.

However, funding was restored to five of the groups following an emergency board meeting.

The Scottish Parliament's culture committee said it received an "unprecedented level of communication from the cultural sector in a short period" as a result of the decisions.

Ms Archer was called to give evidence before the committee, and last month convener Joan McAlpine MSP wrote to her with the results of the committee's inquiry.

The committee found that Creative Scotland's decision-making in relation to touring theatre groups "fell well below the standard that is expected."

The arts groups had unnecessarily committed resources to complete funding applications, the MSPs said.

Creative Scotland was also ordered to urgently investigate alleged factual inaccuracies in assessment reports when funding decisions were made.

On Tuesday, Creative Scotland said Ian Munro would take over the organisation as acting chief executive.

Ms Archer said: "It has been an honour to work closely with, and to serve Scotland's artists and creative communities over the past five years in my role as chief executive of Creative Scotland, and to help many thousands of people produce and share work.

"Over the past five years, we have supported artistic excellence, and equalities, diversity and inclusion.

"We accelerated our work for young people and supported creative projects in all of Scotland's 32 local authority areas.

"We have also enhanced international support across artforms, especially for screen.

"I'm pleased that in a difficult public financial context, Creative Scotland managed to work closely with the Scottish Government to secure an additional £19.8m funding for 2018-21 for Regularly Funded Organisations to replace the unexpected steep downturn in National Lottery Funding, as well as an additional £10m annual support for screen."