AN INDEPENDENT watchdog has criticised the performance of a council in delivering housing repairs for its 7,700 tenants.

Inspectors from the Audit Commission gave Derwentside District Council only one star out of a possible three - ranking the authority as "fair" - but highlighted a number of issues that need to be addressed.

While it said there were "promising prospects for improvement", the commission highlighted a number of weaknesses in the maintenance service provided by the council, including the extent of tenant involvement and value for money.

Julie Slatter, the commission's housing inspector, said: "Day-to-day repair services were good and satisfied most tenants.

"Good progress is being made on refurbishing homes, and the problems caused by low demand are being tackled.

"However, the council needs to find out more about tenants' individual needs, and improve tenant involvement with decision-making.

"It needs to make value for money a priority and make better use of partnerships in its improvement programmes."

The report said the repairs performance was satisfactory, day-to-day repairs were generally done on time and customers were satisfied, but that the appointments system needed improvements.

Inspectors also found that most services had improved over the past two years, especially in re-letting empty homes, but that carrying out adaptations for tenants with disabilities was taking too long.

They also suggested that target-setting was weak and value for money was not a clear priority.

A number of recommendations were made for improving the service.

Mike Clark, executive director of Derwentside council, said: "We were a little bit disappointed.

"We feel our service is more than fair and we were expecting a more positive reaction, but they are an indepen- dent organisation and they judge on how they see it.

"The positive aspect of it is the promising prospects for improvements.

"They acknowledge it going to be better in the future. They recognise our ability to improve and not just they, they realise it is likely to happen."

The department, which has a staff of nearly 150 people, had a budget for day-to-day repairs of just under £5m last year and a major works budget of £6m.