Nicola Sturgeon has been challenged to make public a report examining welfare provision in an independent Scotland.

The move comes five months after the Deputy First Minister announced that an expert group was to examine the potential structure for the welfare system if Scotland left the UK. The resulting report has not yet been published.

Shadow Scottish Secretary Margaret Curran demanded the report be published as she addressed the Money Advice Scotland annual conference in Glasgow. She said Scotland could not remain "on pause". She also argued that the report should address three key post-independence welfare questions.

"In January, Nicola Sturgeon promised a panel of experts would provide a report by May about what we could expect from the welfare state in an independent Scotland.

"Nicola Sturgeon should publish her report. Because, with such significant challenges facing us and with so many individuals and families struggling, we cannot continue to afford a Scotland on pause with the simplistic hope that everything will be OK with independence."

The report needs to address how the benefits system in an independent Scotland would be "disentangled from the UK system".

Ms Curran also questioned if benefits would be cut if Scotland votes to leave the UK in next year's referendum, and said the report must state "what will happen to maternity pay, child benefit, and employment support allowance."

A spokesman for Ms Sturgeon said the group's report would be published before the end of June when the summer recess begins.

"We look forward to it contributing to the debate on how an independent Scotland will help create a fairer and wealthier society," he said. "Spending on social protection in Scotland, which includes pensions, is less than for the rest of the UK which means an independent Scotland will be better able to afford these payments than the UK."