Basildon Council is celebrating after national performance tables have shown that its services are above the county average in more than half the areas measured.

The Audit Commission makes almost 100 separate measures to assess the performance of councils and looks at a whole range of services including housing, leisure, planning and environmental health.

Revenue services was where the council showed particular strength and within Essex this department's overall performance was second only to Rochford.

Last year the service gained a Charter Mark for the quality of its work and six out of 14 official measures featured in the country's top 25 per cent.

Meanwhile the department performed above the county average in 12 measures and out performed the average for similar councils in the same categories.

Basildon's performance figures were published last year, but it is only now that they have been compared with other councils.

Council Leader, Cllr John Potter, has welcomed the results: "There are some real success stories here and also some areas where clearly things could be better, but as an authority we are committed to continually improving our services and their performances and I expect this to be shown in future years."

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