Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council's (MBC) information and communication technology (ICT) services have been given a roasting by the Audit Commission's best value inspectors.

The Commission's inspection team rated the authority's ICT provision as 'poor' following the assessment during May last year.

"The service did not have a clear set of aims and challenging targets designed to improve the service; there was no agreed ICT strategy in place, linked with the business needs of the Council," the report said.

Years of under-investment in the borough's ICT capability were blamed for low end-user satisfaction with IT support, major problems with network capacity and frustrations with specific software products.

"We found a striving, reactive service, which had been constantly 'fire fighting' and, due to under-investment, had been unable to fully meet the Council's emerging needs," the inspectors concluded.

Stockport's ICT budget is £5.6m and the service employs the equivalent of 60 full-time staff in central ICT support and 53 staff in departmental roles.

This provides IT systems and support for the departments at Stockport Town Hall, 80 remote offices and 120 schools.

The services include mainframe computer applications, support for specific PC software applications, technical support to 1,600 workstations, communication and network services, email, intranet and internet services and the council telephone system.

The Commission is satisfied however that Stockport has put in place measures to improve the service.

An improvement plan has been identified to help Stockport achieve the 'Beacon' standard of service, and ICT has been given a higher corporate profile with the creation of the new strategic post of corporate head of ICT.

The Commission has also made several recommendations. These include:

Stockport MBC was available for comment.