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* * * News for 18^th December 2003 * * *

All of Medway: 18^th December 2003

In the 2003 Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) of councils in England, the league table released by the Audit Commission earlier today clearly shows that Conservative-run councils are the best-managed with the highest overall service scores, are more likely to be ranked as excellent and least likely to be rated as weak or poor. By incorporating the results for all councils in England, grouped by political party running each one, the following table gives the figures behind the headlines:

	Overall Service (max. 4)	Percent graded excellent	Percent graded weak or poor
Conservative	3.3	26%	9%
Labour	2.9	20%	20%
Liberal Democrat	3.0	0%	20%

Medway confirmed its 2002 rating of good, which for a just five-year-old unitary authority that has only recently had overall control by one political group is quite an achievement, especially with the improvements that have already been demonstrated since the first assessment. While being nowhere near perfect, Medway Council has consistently shown it is one of the better local authorities in this country and has proved to independent watchdogs (and this is not just the Audit Commission!) that it is improving all the time.

Fpr completeness, below are the total numbers of councils that were given each rating:

• Excellent: 26
• Good: 56
• Fair: 40
• Weak: 18
• Poor: 10