WEST Somerset District Council staff have been congratulated for helping the authority improve its performance over the last 12 months, with many services now ranking among the best in the country. Like all local authorities in England and Wales, the council has to keep records of its performance in key areas to enable the Government to monitor its effectiveness. On Monday, members of the council's performance committee said it was important credit was given where credit was due when they reviewed the figures, which revealed the council was among the top 25 per cent of local authorities in a range of sectors. These included the percentage of people satisfied with council services, working days lost to sickness, overall satisfaction with the benefits service, cleanliness of land and highways and the number of planning applications dealt with within nationally set targets. Committee chairman Cllr Simon Stokes said: "We as a council have our problems, but we also have our successes and we should celebrate them and congratulate all our staff working in areas where we are performing in the top quartile." Half of all the official performance indicators showed the council's performance had improved over the last 12 months, a quarter remained stable, while the remaining quarter - 22 per cent - revealed a drop in performance. Of those, a vast majority related to the authority's ageing Aquasplash leisure pool, which is already the subject of a review after councillors discovered no money had been set aside for ongoing maintenance. The indicators revealed a huge drop in the number of users aged between nine and 15 from 22,195 in 2003-04 to just 2,214 in 2004-05. The number of users between 9am and 4pm had dropped from 50,473 in 2003-04 to 17,685 in 2004-05, while the number of new members had also fallen by 324 in the same period. But the council's new portfolio holder with responsibility for arts and leisure, Cllr Terry Venner, was critical of Government reliance on statistics. He said: "I can sit here and say I'm going to cut the grass this afternoon and if I do it I have achieved it - but that doesn't mean I've performed well." Cllr Stokes said it was vital the authority set itself meaningful and achievable targets but said many of the statutory indicators set by central Government often fell far short. He told the meeting: "Some of the indicators are meaningless for this authority and it is important we let central Government know that. "It is very important that these indicators work, but if some are meaningless they downgrade the entire system." Nevertheless, the council has been keen to highlight its achievements and said the top performing indicators were a tribute to the "quality and hard work of staff". Deputy leader and portfolio holder for internal resources, Cllr Bryan Leaker, said: "Given our very small size and limited resources, I am delighted that we are continuing to do so well when compared to how other, much larger and better resourced authorities, are performing. "For West Somerset to be rated so high in well over a dozen of these categories, as we have been, emphasises how we are continually striving to provide the best possible services to our residents and visitors." He said some of the falling indicators could be attributed to "teething problems" with a new computer system, while others were still ranked in the top 25 per cent despite a drop in performance over the last 12 months. More information about the council's performance will be available in the authority's soon-to-be- published annual Best Value Performance Plan. It will be available at council information points and in public libraries across West Somerset from the end of June and from the council's website at http://www.westsomersetonline.gov.uk">www.westsomersetonline.gov.uk from July.