It is a bitter disappointment to see Oxfordshire demoted from four stars to three in the performance tables.

The county council made much of its 'excellent' status, never losing an opportunity to contrast itself with the 'weak' Oxford City Council.

But now the egg is on faces at County Hall, with the Audit Commission delivering a humiliating verdict.

Although it acknowledges that there have been improvements in many areas of the council's work, it is poor school exam results which have dragged the county down.

All is clearly not well in many of our schools.

New eduction director Jane Tomlinson fears that some heads are in denial about consistently disappointing GCSE results, and says that some children have a better chance of acquiring a good GCSE result in a town like Slough than in Oxfordshire.

Certainly, schools in an affluent county like ours should be doing much better.

Latest figures show 57 per cent of our pupils achieved five GCSEs at grade C or better, compared with 69.2 per cent in Buckinghamshire and 64 per cent in Gloucestershire.

The challenge now is to identify what is wrong with our schools, pinpoint why they are not performing, and put things right - rapidly.

And it is not only a challenge for councillors and council officers at County Hall.

Headteachers, teachers, pupils and parents all have a part to play in getting our county back to a rating of excellent.