Bury Council is the most improved in the country

Town hall bosses are celebrating a major turnaround since the authority was branded "weak" by the Audit Commission last year.

And the commission has handed Bury a second early Christmas present: its education service is the fourth best in the country.

The commission's report confirms that Bury has risen up the Comprehensive Performance Assessment league from "weak" to "fair", and it stands an excellent chance of reaching "good" by the middle of next year.

The commission says the council has made "significant" improvements, with better services and management systems.

"Independent reviews have shown improvements in education, social services, benefits, housing and cultural services," adds the report. "The council is well placed to further improve the way it works and the services it provides."

While Bury's success does not lead directly to more money, it does raise the borough's profile when the Government looks for councils to pilot new schemes. The new Hoyle Learning Centre in Bury, and a big funding boost for its homeless strategy, are cited as two examples of how this can help Bury people.

Councillor John Byrne, council leader, said: "We got a bit of flak last year after our rating. The commission failed to recognise the funding we have suffered from for many years: in fact, they said it was irrelevant! But we felt we had the right team and right attitude to make improvements."

Bury's overall rating is worked out from two elements: how it scores for its core services, and its corporate ability to improve. On the first element, Bury has scored a rating of three out of four, up from last year's two. This comprises education (four), resources (four), benefits (three), libraries and leisure (three), social services (2.5), environment (two) and housing (two). Some scores are multiplied to reflect priorities. Last year, Bury scored 34 points across these services: this year, it has scored 44 points. This puts it into the "fair" category, and has earned the council a re-assessment of the second element, its corporate capacity. If this inspection produces similarly good results, Bury will move up another rung to "good". Managers are asking that this new assessment is carried out in February.

Mr Mark Sanders, council chief executive, said: "The improvements are right across the board: libraries and leisure is now equal top in the countrry."

Mr Sanders was particularly happy with Bury's education performance: only the Corporation of London, Surrey, and Kensington and Chelsea scored higher.

"Until two years ago, we were the poorest-funded in the country for education. Some fabulous work has gone on between the council, the schools and the young people of Bury."

Mr Harold Williams, director of education and culture, said the council had recruited top quality staff to support its strategies on social exclusion, lifelong learning, management and especially on dealing with children with special educational needs.

Next year's target for Bury is to add a point to all services which have not scored four out of four. Managers want improvements in social services (community care arrangements, residential care alternatives, fitting equipment in people's own homes); housing (making more private sector houses fit, helping the homeless, finding long-term tenancies in suitable houses); benefits (speeding up assessment of claims, dealing faster with changes in circumstances); libraries (more opening hours through setting up "outreach" libraries). They also want to tackle school exclusions and help specially gifted pupils.

Council leaders will use Bury's new score to push again for a merger with Rossendale.

The Boundary Committee rejected the idea as a "high risk" option, because both councils had received poor ratings. But Bury will now appeal against this verdict. A merger is possible if North West residents vote for an elected regional assembly, which would abolish councils like Rossendale.