A TOWN is aiming high to improve the quality of life for its residents.

Middlesbrough Borough Council aims to achieve 12 goals including cutting school truancy and raising classroom standards.

It also plans to get more people off the dole and into work; literally clean up the streets; tackle drug abuse and house burglaries, and provide high quality care for the elderly.

In what is a ground breaking experiment the local authority will be rewarded with a £300,000 payment for every target it achieves.

The Teesside borough is only one of six local authorities across the UK invited to sign up to a pioneering public service agreement (PSA).

The council says its participation in the project "will further help to ensure that Middlesbrough continues to be at the forefront of the Government's modernising agenda''.

Representatives of the borough will take part in a national signing ceremony with Government ministers.

The council is to receive £50,000 to offset the administrative costs of taking part in the pilot, with a further £1m to follow over the next year to further help with expenditure.

Council bosses are currently finalising details on a draft agreement. The council has been negotiating with the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions as one of only six pilot authorities, from an original group of 20, whose plans have been put forward for approval.

Council leader Coun Ken Walker said: "This is a tremendously exciting development.

"We are now in a position to finalise plans which will have a real impact on some of the key challenges facing Middlesbrough, currently.

"An awful lot of hard work has gone into drawing up a PSA. I am pleased we have had some positive response from the Government.''

An ambitious Middlesbrough had to ditch four other target areas including a campaign to get more people to switch to using buses and a health improvement drive.

Left on the same cutting room floor were proposals for waste recycling and an arts and sports programme.

The council's targets to reduce school truancies and raise classroom literacy come hard on the heels of an extra £1.3m for education in the town for the next financial year.

That £1.3m follows a £1m top up for schools this financial year.