The idea of Welsh local authority league tables has been slammed by the Assembly Government. Responding to a Wales Audit Office report calling for the introduction of comparative measures in Wales (The MJ, 13 April 2006), the Government said local authority league tables were ‘misleading and add no value at all'. A spokesman told The MJ the assembly welcomed the independent assessment of the state of local government in Wales, and was pleased the report pointed to an ‘improving trend', but added it would not support a move to local authority league tables in Wales. ‘It is far more important for a local authority to improve the actual quality of services it provides than to improve its relative ranking,' he said. ‘It is better to be bottom of a league table of high performers than top of a league table of poor ones.'
