Weymouth and Portland Borough Council has a lot to do to improve its customer service says a report today by the Audit Commission.

The commission monitored the authority on customer access to services and gave it a 'one-star' rating on a scale of zero to three stars.

The commission described customer access to council services as 'fair' but it added that 'overall customer satisfaction levels with the council remain low and efforts to promote itself locally have not been entirely successful'.

There were 'promising prospects for improvement', said the commission, with the council having 'a good track record for introducing changes that improve access to services'.

Council strengths included a willingness to learn from complaints and feedback, a well-motivated and enthusiastic workforce and a commitment to working in partnership with other councils to improve value for money.

Residents' satisfaction with services was also found to be improving at a faster rate than for most similar authorities, especially in the areas of environmental health and recycling, while the council's website was also rated highly by independent observers.

Physical access to public buildings was found to be making good progress on the whole but some difficulties with physical access to the harbour office and Pavilion Theatre were also noted.

Other weaknesses included a lack of detailed information about the specific access needs of all sections of the local community and only partial use of new technology to share customer information across the council.

Awareness of equality and diversity issues was improving and becoming integrated into service delivery, said the commission, but it added that the council was still only at level two out of five levels in the Equalities Standard for Local Government, all councils being expected to work towards level five.

Weymouth and Portland corporate director Jason Vaughan said: "We are very pleased that the report recognises the hard work and improvements that we have made.

"Putting customers at the heart of what we do is very important to us and the investment made in establishing the council's Customer Contact Centre has really helped in this area."