STOCKTON is a workaday town in not the most prosperous part of the country. It has its leafy middle-class enclaves like Hartburn and old Norton and there is a burgeoning population of the upwardly mobile on smart estates at Ingleby Barwick and around Yarm, but it is no Guildford; the miracle wrought on the derelict Teesdale acres across the river from the town centre does not mean Stockton has erased all its inner-city squalor, it has more than its share of down-at-heel neighbourhoods and its distinctive high street struggles to regain past glories.

All in all, in this era of judgement by performance-rating, you would expect it in most league tables to be nearer the relegation zone than the play-offs. Surprise and congratulations, then, are in order when it carries off one significant championship and has a superior goal-difference in another.

The 99.5pc and more of business rates which it collects is higher than in any other unitary authority in the country. And few people in Stockton are allowed to get away without paying their council tax; the collection rate is far better than most.

It is hard to believe that the citizens of Stockton are uniquely enamoured of local taxation, so the achievement must be a tribute to efficiency at the town hall. The key has been to make it as convenient as possible for firms and householders to pay these essential bills.

From that principle has flowed such initiatives as the country's first experiment in sending council tax demands by e-mail - a system Stockton hopes to introduce fully next year - and identifying habitual late-payers, to whom earlier reminders are sent. The latter effort earns the community an extra £15,000 interest each year.

Court action and a possible prison sentence remains a sanction of last resort against non-payers, but now Stockton is to introduce an extra step before a summons is issued: officials will visit defaulters to explore with them ways the debt might be settled. Payment over the internet is being considered, as is the use of credit cards.

Perhaps go-ahead Stockton could also try offering anew the small discount which used to reward those who made a single payment to settle the annual rates bill. Whatever, this is clearly a local authority which has at least one department operating the "best practice" so beloved of New Labour.