BBC SCOTLAND removed criticism of one of their top reporters from their new channel’s big indyref documentary at the last minute.

In last weekend’s Sunday National we revealed how in the latest episode of Yes/No: Inside the Indyref – the in-depth film about the 2014 vote featuring a number of candid interviews with key players – former political editor Nick Robinson criticised the corporation’s coverage of a Mark Carney speech during the independence referendum.

Talking to the filmmakers, Robinson seemingly criticised the BBC Scotland correspondent at the time, James Cook.

He said his colleague, who is now the chief news correspondent of The Nine, did not do “a very good job” of reporting Carney’s remarks.

Cook’s report of the governor’s speech on the BBC news channel at the time was about the “careful consideration” needed to be taken before entering a currency union.

Five hours later, after Robinson had demanded he take over the story, the BBC’s coverage started to warn of dire economic consequences.

Robinson told the filmmakers: “Now I wasn’t sent to cover that story, but I remember sitting in my office in Westminster watching our five o’clock news bulletin and seeing this very nuanced piece.”

In a preview of the documentary seen by the The National, the film cuts away to a clip of Cook, comparing Carney to a “politician” saying the banker was unwilling to come down on any side of the debate.

It then cuts away to Robinson who said: “I wonder if he was really that subtle.”

But in the version of the show broadcast on Tuesday night, all of that had been taken out.

In its place was a clip of an interview between Huw Edwards and Alistair Darling.

The BBC said it was “not unusual for preview versions to differ from the final edit and it was decided that this version was an appropriate visual fit with the points that were being made at that part of programme”.

They said all content “released for preview may be subject to further change as part of the editorial process”.

In both versions, Robinson explains that part of the job of being political editor at the BBC is “decoding what people in public life said”.

He added: “Making it real for people, making it comprehensible. And frankly I don’t think we were doing a very good job at that.

“So when I saw the actual text of the governor of the Bank of England talking about ‘clear risks’ of sharing the pound, that’s what I tried to do on my blog, that’s why I talked myself on to the 10 o’clock news that night.”

Addressing the cameras that night, Robinson told viewers: “The two words used by the governor of the Bank of England to describe the pound being shared between an independent Scotland and the rest of the UK were ‘clear risks’ and the spectre was of a Eurozone crisis, a repeat of runs on the banks, a run on sovereign debt. In other words, the spectre of a Greece or a Portugal or a Spain.”

Alex Salmond accused Robinson of misunderstanding the speech: “All of a sudden the governor’s speech had been reinterpreted as an outright assault on the idea of a sterling union between Scotland and England, which it hadn’t been and wasn’t.”