THE LEADER of a council branded the worst in Britain five years ago has told of his hope that inspectors will find it has improved.

The results of an Audit Commission Comprehensive Performance Assessment for Rossendale Council will be published on Monday - the first since the disastrous rating in 2002.

Council bosses were left reeling when a Corporate Governance Inspection in 2002 ranked Rossendale worst of 237 councils in the country.

In 2004 the authority was given a 'poor' rating - the lowest possible - by the Audit Commission at the start of this year in the first round of Comprehensive Performance Assessments (CPA) carried out on all district councils.

But council leader Duncan Ruddick said huge efforts had been since made to turn the fortunes of the authority around.

He said: "The problem was that the council was in a mess financially and didn't have the capacity to address that but now we have a whole new philosophy and a whole new ethos and we are hoping that the report on Monday will detail the tremendous improvements which have been made by the council in the last few years."

Coun Ruddick said there had been changes in mangagement, a private partnership with Capita to improve council tax collection and more training for councillors, all of which had helped the council get better.

He said: "The council is now a different place to what it was a few years back and hopefully the new assessment will allow us to get on with things a bit more independently of government."

Neighbouring authorities of Burnley and Pendle were rated 'good'.