ONLY days after extolling its achievements in its entry for the Council of the Year award, the poor performance of Blackburn with Darwen on collecting council tax, disclosed today, will surely not impress the judges -- or citizens who do pay their hard-earned dues.

But the council is not alone in East Lancashire in this respect. For Pendle and Rossendale do even worse -- and the Valley authority's scant score of collecting only 91 per cent of council tax dues has drawn demands from the Government for an explanation.

Yet if, as a self-run unitary council, Blackburn with Darwen is busily boosting itself, it surely needs to boost its collecting performance when it is failing to gather nearly seven per cent of the council tax it is owed -- an amount worth almost £2million -- and when this under-achievement ranks it as the third worst in Lancashire and among the bottom ten unitary authorities across the country.

For this is not just a matter of shortcomings on the balance sheet -- it is insulting and unfair to householders who do pay their council tax on time and who end up both subsidising those who don't pay and suffering reduced services as a result of the shortfall in revenue.

It may be that high levels of deprivation and population movement and computer problems contribute to the difficulties of tax collection. But if other councils perform better, then Blackburn with Darwen should too.

And what is wrong with 'naming and shaming' those who don't pay up, as Conservatives leader Colin Rigby urges? Would that not show that the council means business?

At least, we now have pledges that this £2million shortfall will be chased up -- unlike last year when, on the nod, councillors wrote off debts of £1million. The need to do better is clearly spelled out.