City of York Council is on the way to excellence according to independent figures released today (Thursday, 18 December).

The council has again scored a 'good' Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) rating in the Audit Commission's league tables of local authorities and has shown improvements in key service areas since last year's assessment, moving closer to being rated as an 'excellent' council.

The overall rating relates to how the council's core services perform, including education, social care, housing, environment, libraries and leisure, benefits and use of resources. Individual services are also scored between one (lowest) and four (highest).

The commission says that the council has made good progress in improving capacity in social servcies and housing benefits and strong levels of achievement in education have continnued.

It also recognises that the council is looking to improve the local environment and respond to residents' concerns about community safety.

The biggest improvement from last year was in the council's Benefits Service, which increased its score from two to four in the space of a year. Education maintained its rating as a three star LEA and Social Services also kept its two-star rating.

David Atkinson, the council's chief executive, said: "The result shows that the council is continuing to provide a good range of services and has made real progress on last year's score. The benefits service, children's social care and our approach to recycling have shown significant improvement - a credit to the hard work and dedication of staff. "This year we have moved closer to becoming and excellent authority. We are aware of our weaknesses and will continue to work towards improving both the poorer services and those which are already good, over the coming months."