NICOLA Sturgeon called out Scottish Labour’s deputy leader during FMQs this afternoon over her efforts to “stop [her] briefing the public”.

Last year Jackie Baillie denied campaigning for the BBC to axe its coverage of the First Minister’s regular briefings after Labour peer George Foulkes suggested she had.

In July, Baillie wrote to BBC Scotland director Donalda Mackinnon to complain about the corporation airing the press conferences.

READ MORE: Jackie Baillie denies urging BBC to axe coverage of Nicola Sturgeon virus briefings

“These briefings are no longer used to relay information but have become increasingly political,” she said. “This would be a hugely inappropriate use of public money at any time, but with less than 10 months to go until a national election, I feel very strongly that these briefings cannot be allowed to continue in the current format.”

In September the broadcaster announced it would only be airing the briefings on TV based on their “editorial merit” before U-turning days later.

At the time Baillie retweeted a post from the Foulkes, which read: “BBC Scotland stopping daily live coverage of Nicola Sturgeon’s coronavirus briefings.

“Good to see [BBC Scotland] have taken account of representations from [Jackie Baillie] and me!”

READ MORE: 'Pathetic' Unionists attack BBC for broadcasting FM's Covid briefings

The MSP confirmed she had met with the BBC to discuss the briefings, stressing concern over “political balance” in the coverage. However, she denied actively trying to get the briefings stopped, saying: “I have not campaigned for an end to the BBC’s coverage of the First Minister's briefing, as some have suggested, or for public health messages to be stopped.

“Ultimately the BBC will use their editorial judgement to decide what they cover and that is rightly a matter for them.”

During today’ FMQs, Baillie was challenging the First Minister on a new Auditor General report which said pandemic planning failures by the Scottish Government may have contributed to PPE shortages and stretched social care capacity at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak.

The National:

The report said ministers were “slow” to implement improvements from training exercises in some areas, and that the Government had based its initial response to the virus crisis on preparation for a major flu pandemic.

After an exchange on the findings, Baillie accused Sturgeon of "hiding behind" NHS staff on the issue.

“We know that PPE was not adequate, there was initially a shortage of supply, because health and social care staff told us so,” Baillie told MSPs this afternoon. “I see the First Minister shakes her head, but these are the very staff that we praised for their efforts and they were telling us what was going wrong.

“Had the First Minister listened to the warnings about the threat facing social care in a pandemic and yes in the context of flu pandemic planning too, lives could have been saved. Why didn’t she?”

The National:

Sturgeon stood up to respond to the MSP’s question. “Firstly I have, on not one single day since this pandemic struck, hidden or tried to hide in any way. In fact on the days, many of the days, I think, when I’ve been seeking to the best of my ability to lead this country through the pandemic, Jackie Baillie has been writing letters to the BBC trying to stop me briefing the public on a daily basis.

Baillie shook her head. Sturgeon continued: “So perhaps it is the fact that this government has shown leadership that Jackie Baillie finds quite so difficult to take.”

READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon hits out at Dominic Cummings's admission about Covid contract

The First Minister went on: “It is because we did learn lessons from the swine flu pandemic we had in 2009 and the exercise that were done, that we had a stockpile of PPE at the start of this pandemic, and as I said earlier on that’s why we never once ran out of PPE.

“The early issues we faced in terms of the distribution of PPE within the health service we quickly resolved.

“There are, to this day, ongoing concerns that we listen to very carefully from staff about the precise nature of the PPE and whether it is adequate to protect them from the virus, particularly as we face new variants – and our clinical advisers listen to that and discuss that so that we can respond as necessary.”

The First Minister added that the Scottish Government had topped up the PPE supplies for care home providers.

READ MORE: 'World first': Scottish scientists predict epidemic size and evolution

She accepted that the Government has “made mistakes” and have learned from those.

“Jackie Baillie talks about care homes, it’s because we learned the lessons from care homes earlier this year that we made the decision that we were going to focus on getting the maximum number of people in care homes vaccinated – not just offered the vaccine but vaccinated. Even if that slowed down the rest of the programme early on in it.”

She attacked Baillie and Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson for criticised the Government over that decision just weeks ago.

“I think that says it all,” she added. “They’ll criticise whatever we do.

“But we’ll continue to get on with the job of keeping the people of this country as safe as we can.”