WEST Yorkshire Police are still attacking a report which called the force one of the worst in the country.

Official tables from the Inspectorate of Constabulary showed that West Yorkshire was one of the five poorest-performing forces among the 43 in England and Wales.

At the start of this week Chief Constable Colin Cramphorn hit out, saying the figures were out of date.

He said they did not reflect recent improvements made in the priority policing aspects of burglary, car crime and robbery.

In the 16 subjects inspected, the force was graded excellent or good in five areas, fair in nine and poor in two - volume crime and road policing.

Now, Deputy Chief Constable Phill Brear has said the force's policing performance since the time of the report made it among the most improved.

He added: "The force now heads the table of the most improved performances of the 43 forces in England and Wales.

"We have moved further or faster than everyone else - and those improvements are getting better each month."

Mr Brear said there were now 1,310 fewer victims of robbery (down 27%), 8,392 fewer victims of house burglaries (down 23%) and 11,382 fewer victims of vehicle crime (down 18%) than 12 months ago.

He went on: "Looking just at May we are 30% to 40% better than the same month last year.

"No other force is achieving this. It is a remarkable achievement, considering that West Yorkshire has fewer officers per 1,000 head of population than the other metropolitan forces.

"At the time of the inspection the force had 825 fewer officers than our contemporaries."

County police authority chairman Clr Mark Burns-William- son said: "Performance dipped during 2002 and 2003, the period covered by this report. We asked the new chief constable to reverse the decline- and he has done."