Wandsworth has become the first council in London to publish league tables that show how the services it provides compare to those of councils across the capital.

The council has pledged to become Britain’s most transparent council and to allow residents "warts and all" transparency on how it performs.

The new Open Council section on its website provides comparisons on 90 council services that the Government has said it must include, from road maintenance to how pupils perform at school , and highlights 27 that it believes are most important to residents which include comments from key councillors.

Overall the council is ranked 5th in the capital but its position varies from area to area. On recycling, for instance, Wandsworth is ranked 26th out of 32 London boroughs while it is sixth best at processing housing benefit.

People using the site are being encouraged to comment on the council's performance in each area.

Also available on the site is information on its budget and details of every purchase made by the council above £500 as well as details about contracts worth more than £25,000 held between the council and its clients.

In October last year, for instance, the council spent £325,000 on heating the Patmore estate, and £17,000 on window cleaning.

The public will be able to examine the expenses paid to elected councillors and senior officers.

Until now getting this information would have been difficult and time consuming.

Publication of this information by councils is linked to the abolition of the Audit Commission which previously rated councils.

Councillor Ravi Govindia, leader of Wandsworth Council, said: "Transparency and openness will drive us to become an even better council. There is no bigger critic than ourselves.

“Our residents should not need the skills of Poirot to find out how their council is doing.

"We are being open about how we are doing, warts and all, in a way that is easy for everybody to understand, contrast and compare."

Robert Oxley, campaign manager of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “It’s important that taxpayers are able to hold their council to account and compare how it’s performing. It’s great to see that bosses at Wandsworth have given residents access to all the data, local authorities can’t just cherry pick statistics to show themselves in a good light. Other councils should follow Wandsworth’s lead."

To read the full list of performance indicators visit wandsworth.gov.uk/opencouncil.

Ravi Govindia explains Wandsworth Council's decision

This week Wandsworth is throwing open the cloak of secrecy that is in danger of emerging by launching Open Council.

We are doing this not because we are the best council in all areas, but because we want our residents to be able to get a complete picture on how their council performs across the range of services.

By giving our residents a clear picture they can hold us to account and decide whether or not they are receiving value for money for the council tax they pay. Where we are below average the decision makers will explain why and what we are doing to improve our performance.

The power of information can spark a debate and that has to be good for local democracy.

Personally, we hope other councils will follow our example. Local government should not need the red tape and expense of the Audit Commission to tell us how good or bad we are. Our residents should be the ones that judge us, not faceless bureaucrats. We are finally making the concept of the ‘Armchair Auditor’ a reality.