TORY election claims that East Hampshire District Council's planning performance was among the top 10 per cent in the country looked questionable this week after more government league table revelations.

The beleaguered planning department has already had to admit that major blunders in the way officers measured decision times could lead to the loss of a £90,000 government grant.

Now the council has been called upon, by a member of the public, to carry out a detailed examination of earlier planning decisions when East Hampshire was given a massive £273,000 grant.

It has emerged that when Conservatives were boasting, last year, that EHDC was dealing with three quarters of its applications on time, making it one of the top 10 per cent planning authorities in Britain, it had, in fact, been labelled one of the 50 worst performers in the country.

When the party was telling voters that the council's planning decision success had triggered a grant worth £273,000, it had been designated, along with other poorly performing authorities, as a "standards authority'.

The planning saga began when the district council's planning performance for 2000 to 2001 came in for special government scrutiny after failing all three government targets.

It had processed less than 25 per cent of major applications in 13 weeks, less than 35 per cent of minors in eight weeks and less than 55 per cent of others in eight weeks. These figures put the council in the bottom 15 per cent of performers nationally.

And in December 2001 the government announced that the council, along with around 50 others, was to be a 'standards authority' which was to be specially monitored.

The following year, government figures showed that EHDC had made a dramatic improvement.

Although it was still only deciding 15 per cent of its major applications in eight weeks (25 per cent in 13 weeks) an impressive 60 per cent of minors were being decided in eight weeks (76 per cent in 13 weeks) and 81 per cent of the others were getting decisions in eight weeks (93 per cent in 13 weeks).

As a result of these figures, the council was given a £273,000 grant, one of the highest government planning performance grants allocated that year.

And it was based on these results that Conservatives went into the district council elections trumpeting their success.

Setting out their stall to voters in April last year they said: "When the Conservatives took control of EHDC it was processing less than a fifth of applications on time. This has now risen to three quarters on time and EHDC is now in the top 10 per cent of councils in the country."

The following year's figures (October 2002 to September 2003) showed even greater success with 55.5 per cent of major applications reaching the target, 65.04 of minors and 80.2 of the others.

Based on these figures EHDC received a second planning performance grant, this time to the tune of £90,000.

But after an allegation of irregularities concerning these figures, they were re-examined.

The result showed that blunders in measuring the decision times had made the planning performance look better than it actually was. Instead of reaching and exceeding two of the government's targets, the council in fact failed to meet all three last year.

But figures presented to councillors last week showed that the council is now back on track and using upgraded computer systems and new consistency checks, it hopes it has achieved all three government targets for this year.

Council leader Andrew Pattie told The Herald: "In l999 there was a bad situation and in 2000 we were identified as among the 69 worst performing councils. No sanctions were taken against us as the Tories had come in and started to turn things around and we were improving. Interim targets were set up. In the year we were granted £90,000 we have acknowledged we had some anomalies which were down to poor input of data and computer flakiness.

"It is not certain we are going to be punished for this yet. The year before we were given a £273,000 grant and we have asked the ODPM if they want us to look at that. We were asked if we had been audited and as we had been, they said they were perfectly happy and there was no issue.

"To date we have met all our targets and we wait to see where we are in December when the new figures are published. On September 14, government minister Keith Hill wrote to us and said we were in the 39 most improved councils. We have made mistakes, we have held our hands up and we have sorted everything out. We have had a 50 per cent audit of everything we have done and that is unique.

"When we said in our election campaign that we were among the top 10, that is what we thought at the time otherwise we would not have said it. If you look at the situation now and how it was five years ago, it's a different world - we have met all our targets.

Chief executive Will Godrey added: "Despite the errors in reporting, there is still clear evidence of significantly improved performance. Once we were alerted to a possible problem we investigated, carried out an 18-month backcheck and reported the results to the ODPM. They were happy that all the figures had been audited and were not looking for any return of funds from the £273,000 granted in 2001-2002.

"We are still waiting to hear about the current grant but given that the overall picture is one of improving performance, I hope the ODPM will not be seeking any refund from this year's grant."