The Audit Commission has rated 22 fire and rescue authorities as “excellent” or “good” in the first independent review of the services.

A further 17 out of a total of 47 authorities in England were classed as fair, and six as weak or poor. Reports on the remaining two authorities will be published in due course.

Government minister Jim Fitzpatrick congratulated the top rated authorities, saying it showed “much innovation and new good practice that we should be proud of”.

However, he said there was still room for improvement, urging those authorities that did not make the grade to emulate those that did.

“As a government we will support all authorities, but we are already working in particular with those authorities with poor or weak ratings to ensure improvement is rapid and sustained,” he added.