A progress report by the Local Government Task Force says that the contractor vetting service Constructionline has made significant service improvements.
The report is a follow-up to another last June, which said that Constructionline needed to make a number of improvements to encourage more users and to improve its efficiency.

The progress report said that firms could now contact Constructionline more easily because it had a better website. The report added that its technical competence had improved and the amount of out-of-date information on contractors had fallen, as firms supplied information annually.

Constructionline has seen a 23.5% rise in public sector clients during 2002. It now has 1680. It has 12,100 construction companies on the register, a rise of 16.9%.

Constructionline director Simon Kellaway said: "We have some way to go yet, but Constructionline is now in a stronger position than at any stage in its history."