How your council ranks in performance league tables for finances, roads, waste management and care

However, council leader Councillor Stephen Simkins described the rankings as 'unjust and unfair', saying they were unfairly skewed towards borrowing levels and did not take into account the differing levels of deprivation faced in different areas.

He said the council had been judged as 'excellent' in an independent auditors' report.

Wolverhampton did perform better than neighbouring Birmingham, which came in at 315th in the league table. However, Wolverhampton's finances have been ranked as worse than Birmingham's, despite the second city's council being placed into effective bankruptcy last year.

Wolverhampton's finances were ranked as the third worst in the country, compared to Birmingham's which came 305 out of 318. Wolverhampton Council's strongest showing was in social care, where it was ranked 15th in the country, and roads came in at a creditable 46th. However, its handling of planning applications and waste management were both towards the bottom of the table, at 242nd and 245th respectively.

The rankings were compiled by The Times newspaper, using data from the Office for Local Government.

Councillor Simkins criticised the methodology used by both the newspaper and the regulator, saying they favoured shire counties over large urban authorities.

"The independent auditors said we have got an excellent record of financial management," he said.

"This scoring is skewed to focus on borrowing, but it doesn't recognise the difference between good borrowing and bad borrowing.

"An example of good borrowing is the learning quarter - that's going to deliver improvements moving forward, but according to this we shouldn't be doing it.

"We could solve that tomorrow by paying all the borrowing back, but where would that leave the people of the city? This methodology is deliberately biased to make the large metropolitan authorities, and the Labour one in particular, look bad."

Councillor Simkins said council performances were previously monitored through the comprehensive performance assessment, which he believed to be a far fairer regime.

Dudley Council's finances will also give cause for concern, being ranked only marginally better than Birmingham and Wolverhampton at 301. However, Dudley Council performed better overall, coming in 202nd. It came a middling 186th for waste management, but scored highly for planning (seventh), roads (29th) and social care (39th).

Walsall was ranked 219th, coming 12th for roads maintenance and 56th for social care. Its finances ranked reasonably at 135th, but scored less impressively for waste management (278th) and planning (238th).

Sandwell Council was ranked 278th out of 318, but propped up the table in last place when it came to waste collections.

It performed well for roads maintenance, in 33rd place, and social care (58th). Planning services were above average, coming 120th, but its finances were again cause for concern in 257nd place.

Telford & Wrekin Council was the best performing unitary authority in the region, being ranked 97th. It scored highly for planning, coming 9th, but scored less impressively for road maintenance, where it was ranked 284th.

Shropshire Council was ranked 216th, performing particularly poorly (313th) for roads maintenance, but doing better for social care (69th) and waste collection (89th). Planning services were ranked 266th, and finances 192nd.

Staffordshire County Council came slightly above average in 146th position, scoring well for roads (54th) and social care (52nd), with middling scores for finance (153), waste collections (144th) and planning (157th).

Worcestershire County Council was ranked 167th.

The top performing authorities in the region was Lichfield, which came 27th followed by South Staffordshire, ranked 39th. However, as lower-tier district authorities, these are not strictly comparable. Stafford Borough Council was ranked 101st, Cannock Chase 165th, and Wyre Forest 221st.