MALDON District Council's own 'watchdog' committee is set to discuss a new report on "complaints against a councillor" in private.

The item appears on the agenda for the authority's Joint Standards Committee to be held next Tuesday (27 October).

There are no further details of whether the report relates to previous or fresh complaints – or which councillor the complaints are about.

The press and public are to be excluded from the online meeting under the Local Government Act 1972 just before the report by the council's monitoring officer is debated by members of the committee. It is standard practice to hear such items in private, but any further action as a result of the report to councillors would be a matter of public interest and therefore in the public domain.

This latest development comes after a series of complaints against district councillors in recent months.

Three district councillors - Cllrs Sue White, Bryan Harker and Bob Boyce - were found to have brought the council into disrepute following complaints about their behaviour at a Joint Standards Committee in February, for pre-determining the outcome of a vote on a complaint against Councillor Adrian Fluker.

Former council leader Cllr Fluker has since been been censured by the council and banned from sitting on committees for 12 months after an independent report found he had bullied and humiliated a fellow councillor in a homophobic manner.

Complaints against Independent Councillor Chrisy Morris were dismissed at a meeting of the Joint Standards Committee in September.