The leader of Dundee City Council has been censured for breaching the medical confidentiality of a member of staff.

Ken Guild was brought before the Standards Commission after he revealed at a public meeting that a council employee had been "signed off for a month".

Mr Guild made the comments as part of a controversial debate to delete the woman's post as principal teacher of the young mothers' unit at Menzieshill High in February last year.

After a two-day hearing, the Standards Commission for Scotland ruled he had breached the councillors' code of conduct, which obliges councillors to observe and comply with requirements to keep certain information confidential.

In a statement, the commission panel said: "At a hearing of the Standards Commission for Scotland, held in Dundee on 13 and 14 June, 2016, councillor Ken Guild, of Dundee City Council, was censured for failing to observe confidentiality.

"The decision to censure was imposed as a result of councillor Guild disclosing the fact that the holder of a post of principal teacher of a young mothers' unit, which was being considered for deletion, had been signed off work for a period of one month."

The hearing panel considered that while Mr Guild was not explicitly told the information was confidential when he was provided with it, he ought to have been aware it was confidential personal information and should not have been disclosed in the manner that it was.

The panel chairwoman, Lindsey Gallanders, in delivering the hearing panel's decision said: "The hearing panel took cognisance of the fact that the remark had been made in the context of a fraught public meeting and noted the contribution the respondent has made to public life including over 22 years as a councillor.

"However, councillors must comply with the code and must take care when dealing with information of a confidential nature."

When contacted for a response Mr Guild said: "It is a strange world where you can be sanctioned for telling the truth to counter deliberately misleading information."

He declined to comment on the confidentiality breach.