A series of "difficult questions" will be asked about the spending of arts body Creative Scotland by the Scottish Parliament's culture committee later this year.

The Scottish Parliament's Education and Culture Committee are to examine the country's main educational and cultural bodies, and how they spend their budgets, which range from £40m to £1bn.

The committee will look at spending decisions and their results in a series of sessions that will "explore how the organisations help to deliver tangible improvements to key public services", a statement said.

The five bodies being questioned are Creative Scotland, Education Scotland, the Scottish Qualifications Authority, Skills Development Scotland and the Scottish Funding Council.

The committee has issued a call for submissions on each of the bodies, with subject including "the tangible benefits Creative Scotland has achieved as a result of its funding structure."

It is also soliciting views on "the work Creative Scotland is doing to develop a set of performance measures and how performance is being evaluated in the interim" and "how effectively Creative Scotland works alongside and complements other agencies, such as Skills Development Scotland and Scottish Enterprise, to grow the creative industries."

The closing date for responses is 24 August.

Five separate meetings will be held with these bodies in autumn 2015, before the Scottish Government publishes its 2016-17 Draft Budget.

Creative Scotland's meeting will be held on 15 September.

Stewart Maxwell MSP, convener of the committee, said: "There are a range of public bodies working in Scotland's cultural and educational landscape. It is important that we understand the impact of these organisations, the value they add and how effectively they work together.

"We will be looking at their strategic objectives as well as how transparent they are in reporting on their work.

"The bodies play a major role in public life and it is important that they demonstrate how effectively they are spending public money.

"It is important we ask the difficult questions to a range of these bodies.

"This will allow us to better understand the functions and how they work, both individually and together. We will follow up with the Scottish Government the key points that emerge from our discussions."

A spokeswoman for Creative Scotland said: "We welcome the invitation by the Education and Culture Committee at the Scottish Parliament to give evidence on Creative Scotland.

"We have been working hard to progress the development and delivery of our 10-year plan which sets out a long term vision for the arts, screen and creative industries and Creative Scotland's role in helping to deliver that.

"Alongside our development, advocacy and influencing work, a key part of this has been to simplify our funding approach with Regular, Targeted and Open Funding routes replacing the multiple funding programmes that previously existed."

"The Committee provides a welcome opportunity to reflect on this work and help inform how we can continue to improve our services."