Many more town halls have got better than those getting worse

The Audit Commission has for the second year graded councils as "excellent", "good", "fair", "weak" or "poor".

Almost three times as many councils have improved their grading since last year as those who have dropped down.

Education, social care for adults, housing and housing benefits saw the biggest improvements, says the commission in a report on Thursday.

The commission's Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) covers 150 county, metropolitan, unitary and London councils.

Since last year, 26 of them have risen at least one performance category, compared to nine that have got worse.

WORST PERFORMERS Bedfordshire Coventry Hackney Kingston-upon-Hull Lambeth North Tyneside Plymouth Swindon Walsall Waltham Forest Find out how your council scored

The biggest climbers were the among the worst councils last year, with more than a third of the 34 councils ranked "weak" or "poor" moving up a category.

East Sussex - as well as Windsor and Maidenhead - have both climbed from "weak" last year to "good" this year after "significant improvements" in their social services.

Bury also jumped from "weak" to "fair", becoming the biggest points improver.

The commission also says Hackney Council in London is showing signs of improvement, despite remaining in the "weak" category.

'Excellent news'

Overall, nearly 55% of councils are classed as "good" or "excellent" and will save money because they no longer face such rigorous inspections.

Another 10 councils are ranked "poor" - down three on last year - 18 are classed as "weak", 40 as "fair", 56 as "good" and 26 as "excellent".

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Audit Commission chairman James Strachan said: "This is excellent news. Council performance is improving and CPA is proving an effective tool to track - and drive - that improvement."

Mr Strachan said the tables were not just about ranking councils but giving them tips on how to get better.

"Local people can make better informed decisions because they have an annually updated picture of their council's performance," he went on.

"All councils - regardless of ranking - should focus on where they can do better."

Council tax warning

Local Government Minister Nick Raynsford said the results showed councils were rising to the challenge of producing better services.

"We expect all councils, no matter how well they have scored today, to continue the drive to make public services better in a cost-effective way," he said.

"The government will continue to work directly with the poorer performing councils to help them improve their services."

But in a warning against big council tax rises next year, Mr Raynsford said: "Councils should be aware better performance cannot come at an unreasonable cost to the taxpayer."

The minister said not all councils had success stories from the report and faced a long journey to deliver first-rate services.

Party scores

Conservative shadow local government secretary David Curry said it made official Tory councils' claims to be the best providers of local services.

"Conservative-run local authorities are more likely to deliver the best services, whilst Labour and Liberal Democrat councils perform the worst," he said.

"It is no wonder that the Labour Government are so reluctant to devolve any meaningful autonomy to local government when England's most rotten boroughs are in Labour's own backyard."

Mr Curry said Tory councils on average scored 3.3 out of 4 on "overall service" compared to 2.9 for Labour councils and 3.0 for Liberal Democrat councils.

'Flawed'

Liberal Democrat spokesman Ed Davey said ministers had gone back on their promise to remove the kind of interference shown in the league tables.

"Where councils are improving it is right to celebrate that success," he said.

"Yet some of these figures are so arbitrary and flawed that there will be councils that will justifiably feel hard done by.

"The government cannot expect councils or council tax payers to take their promises seriously when they keep moving the goalposts."