A Worcestershire councillor is under investigation for allegedly verbally abusing a colleague at County Hall.

Members of Worcestershire County Council’s standards committee have referred the incident for further investigation following a complaint made earlier this year.

It is not known whether the alleged abuse was directed towards another councillor, or a paid member of staff.

But following a three-person hearing held behind closed doors, members of the council’s standards sub-committee have decided the complaint is sufficiently serious to warrant further investigation. In his role as the council’s monitoring officer, head of legal services Simon Malkinson has now employed a private investigator to assess if there are grounds to censure the councillor involved.

A council spokesman said: “The verbal abuse complaint is currently being investigated by an investigator on behalf of the monitoring officer, following its referral to him by the standards and ethics assessment sub-committee.

“Once the investigation of the complaint has been completed, the investigator will prepare a report for the monitoring officer, who will then refer the report and recommendation on it to the assessment sub-committee, which will determine what action to take in connection with the complaint.”

Speaking at a public meeting of the standards committee, Mr Malkinson said it was normal not to name councillors who have had complaints made about them at this early stage.

He said: “Councillors’ names have been anonymised as we haven’t got to the findings stage of any breach (of the councillors’ code of conduct).”

It emerged there have been four complaints against county councillors over recent months – two of which have been named.

No further action will be taken against Tory councillor Stephen Clee after he was found to have duplicated a string of expenses claims across two different councils. He has since agreed to pay back some of his expenses.

There will be no action either against former Tory councillor Mumshad Ahmed after he was given a suspended prison sentence for driving offences just weeks after his election.

Coun Ahmed had referred himself to the standards committee for assessment and now sits as an independent. He has faced down calls from opposing councillors to step down.

He was unavailable for comment this week. The final complaint dismissed, against another unnamed councillor, was “concerning comments attributed to (the) councillor’s web blog, and in the local press, in relation to another party”.

No further details have been made public.