A national newspaper article which has ranked Wiltshire Council towards the bottom of all local authorities in England has caused significant dismay in County Hall.

The Times has used data submitted to the Office for Local Government by 318 councils across the country to put them all in a ranking.

According to the paper, the data puts Wiltshire Council at 298th position out of 318- that means only 5.3 per cent of local authorities are performing worse than Wiltshire.

The paper gives a ranking for the council for five different areas of its business:  for finance, it ranks the council 188, for waste collection and management 236, for roads, 275, for social care 314 and for efficiency of dealing with planning applications the council is ranked  301.

But bosses at the council dispute that assessment and have written to Oflog to request it to rebut the Times article.

The letter signed by leader, Councillor Richard Clewer and chief executive, Terence Herbert says: “We are writing to express our grave concern that the Office for Local Government has allowed today’s article in The Times to be published using such selective, negligent, and context-free analysis.

“Wiltshire Council has been a firm supporter of Oflog, but we are saddened to say, as one of the country’s highest performing local authorities, our faith in Oflog is now dented.

 “We pride ourselves on our transparency and encourage residents to hold us to account, in the same way we hold ourselves to account every day in our use of the public purse, and in how we deliver for them. Our quarterly performance reports, published and discussed at our local cabinet meetings, provide a rich level of analysis to enable this.

“Noting Oflog’s intent, we believe there is now a threat of it failing to deliver its vision to ‘provide authoritative and accessible data and analysis about the performance of local government and support its improvement.’

“If Oflog is ever to attain an authoritative voice, it needs to ensure that when its work is cited, there is an explicit acknowledgement of the limitations of current data sets, the significant time lag, and forthcoming changes to a range of performance measures. This should sit alongside the acknowledgement of differing funding levels and the importance of local context.

“The Times has not done this today, and it risks setting a dangerous precedent for poor analysis to enter the public domain. It distorts residents’ views of their local authorities and weakens staff morale to see rankings like this so poorly considered and presented.

“Wiltshire has, for example, been recently rated ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted for its Children Services, received glowing feedback from a range of peer challenges, and is a sector-led improvement partner to other authorities. All of these metrics and reports are publicly available.

The letter says the low ranking on finances is of particular concern and adds: “We have a balanced budget (and are, in fact, putting appropriate reserves aside) and it is led, monitored and scrutinised to a high standard, including by our Cabinet and elected members.

It, therefore, seems highly inappropriate for Oflog to rely on less relevant indicators and data from 2021/22 when our present position is in stark contrast to many councils across the country.

 You will observe that we will be raising our significant concerns about the presentation of Oflog’s data directly with The Times, Ministers and our local MPs.

“We expect Oflog to strongly rebut the article and the analysis as it begins the journey of rebuilding the sector’s faith and confidence in this vital public resource.”

We will bring you Oflog’s response when it is made available.