A SHOWDOWN was set to take place yesterday after the publication of a damning report which is highly critical of the district council's services -- including rubbish collection.

Bromsgrove District Council dema-nded the meeting after seeing a draft copy of the Audit Commission's Best Value Inspectorate report which hit out at the way the authority's depot services, including street cleaning, housing repairs and winter path gritting, have been run.

The authority lodged a formal complaint criticising the inspectorate -- which said there were serious weaknesses in the corporate and financial management of the council -- and the way the inspection was conducted five months ago.

One of the services singled out for criticism in the report is refuse collection.

Council bosses were to argue that while more than three-quarters of residents were said to be "satisfied" with the service, the inspectorate claimed it was "deteriorating."

Council leader Cllr Nick Psirides (Con, Norton) said: "They are scraping the barrel to find points to criticise our depot services.

"They quote 70 missed bin collections per 100,000 -- this is less than half of the national average.

"Although they admit to Bromsgrove providing good services as far as clean streets and excellent fly-tipping collections, they still feel the depot services are run inefficiently."

Best Value Inspection Service's regional director Paul Kirby said: "Bromsgrove provides some good services on the ground and public satisfaction with the service is reasonable.

"However, some services, such as the collection of dustbins are deteriorating and the council does not monitor the overall performance or value for money it gets from the service."