So claimed Coun John Wilmott (Lab), of Hucknall, at the council's December meeting.

The report has been produced by the council's own officers to give guidance for the future.

But it reveals that the council under-achieved in 40 out of 75 areas, even including health and safety, during the period from July to September.

Coun Wilmott said the controlling Liberal Democrats group, who assumed power after the May elections, should "get their act together or get somebody else to do the job properly".

Council leader Coun Jason Zadrozny (Lib Dem) replied that everyone would agree that the report was a nightmare.

But he claimed that his party had taken over after "years of neglect" under the former Labour administration.

He said: "I think that even where the indicators make it appear we are not performing properly, we have achieved excellent results.

"In community regeneration, for instance, we are delivering over and above our targets."

Coun John Knight (Lab), formerly of Hucknall and now a Kirkby member, said it was wearing a bit thin for the Lib Dems to keep blaming Labour.

RED triangles, which show services where Ashfield District Council under-performed from July to September, are to be found against the whole of the following list:

COMMUNITY SAFETY BENEFIT AREA – house burglaries, violent crime, robberies, vehicle crime, quality of domestic violence services.

ENVIRONMENT BENEFIT AREA – development/building control (major applications determined within 13 weeks). Waste management: increased cost of waste collection from houses. Street management: unacceptable levels of graffiti and flyposting on highway, time to respond to requests for overflowing litter and dog bins and removal of offensive graffiti. Neighbourhood enforcement: reports of abandoned vehicles being investigated within 24 hours of notification, abandoned vehicles removed within 24 hours after legal period of notice required.

SOCIAL INCLUSION BENEFIT AREA – housing and council tax benefit: Average time for changes, cases for which benefit calculation was correct, over-payments recovered and written off.
CUSTOMER SERVICES – calls answered within 20 seconds, customers waiting more than 10 minutes to see customer adviser, number of calls abandoned.

COMMUNITY HEALTH BENEFIT AREA – healthy lifestyles: young people on Ashfield Council programmes (non-attendance recorded at Hucknall-based Festival of Sport gala day due to bad weather).

HOUSING BENEFIT AREA – home renovations: number of non-decent properties made decent, occupied by vulnerable people. Housing management: tenants more than seven weeks in arrears.

LEISURE BENEFIT AREA – number of anti-social behaviour incidents on parks and open spaces (actual 44, target 35), average time to respond to requests for removal of dog fouling from paved areas, for removal of litter from grassed areas, for overflowing park litter bins and dog bins.

OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY BENEFIT AREA – women and disabled in top 5% earners, disabled employees and ethnic minorities employees.

FINANCIAL HEALTH BENEFIT AREA – achievement of audit plan, number of fraud investigators per 1,000 caseload (two categories), number of prosecutions and sanctions per 1,000 caseload.

HEALTH AND SAFETY BENEFIT AREA – number of reported and not properly reported accidents on Ashfield Council premises.