COUNCIL chiefs have vowed to continue working to improve Hillingdon's services after Government inspectors ranked the borough 'fair' in a new report.

The grading places Hillingdon Council in the middle of five categories ranging from poor to excellent following a detailed inspection in the autumn.

Cllr Ray Puddifoot, leader of the council, told the Times: "This is a good starting point and there has been a lot of hard work by staff and councillors.

"We recognise there is still a way to go and that's what we aim to do."

The report was drawn up after the first Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) scored all 150 county, metropolitan, unitary and London councils nationwide as either excellent, good, fair, weak or poor.

Councils have been scored from one to four in key service areas with one being the lowest and four the highest. Hillingdon was given a top score of four for benefits and a three for education, housing and child social care. Adult social care was given a grading of two as were libraries, leisure and use of resources. However, the council scored just one for environmental services.

Cllr Puddifoot said: "There are no real surprises. With environment and libraries and leisure we know there has been underinvestment and we are addressing that.

"We intend to put an additional £1 million into the environment which should give us a boost. But in categories like education and social services there is a big improvement given that two years ago we would have been considered poor or weak. It's nothing for us to be complacent about and we're not."