The system was designed to demonstrate, and improve the value and services of councils, and to give communities an independent picture of how well their council was performing in serving the community.
It found the Hastings council was "performing well" in governance, leadership and strategy, and communicating with the public and business.
A "better than competent" rating was given to the council's financial decision-making and transparency and service delivery and asset management.
The report noted the district faced major issues in terms of hazard management, including an urgent need to address coastal erosion, which was likely to make a number of coastal settlements uninhabitable.
"The council takes this issue seriously and is starting to initiate discussions about future land use," the report said.
Mr Yule said that he considered Hastings was leading councils across the country looking at coastal erosion, along with the Napier City Council and the Hawke's Bay Regional Council.
"Ross [Hastings District council chief executive Ross McLeod] and I also brought in a focus on sustainability that follows through to climate change - we are quite advanced in that space."
A challenge identified for the council was the need to inject more energy into the vision for the town centre "whose appeal is under threat by both Havelock North and Napier".
This had been under the radar, but the Havelock North water crisis had sidelined this, along with some other priorities, over the last year, Mr Yule said.
"That's not going away, it has to be addressed like many other parts of New Zealand and there's no easy solutions."
Being subject to the ministerial inquiry, the council's response to the water crisis was beyond the scope of the report, but it did note the council had taken a leadership role in open discussions about the future of water in its various forms.
The Havelock North situation had, however, shown the risk that any council faced may well be the risk it had not identified, and that the council was undertaking a strategic review to pinpoint such risks.
A CouncilMARK report for the Napier City Council, which also scored an "A" rating, was released in July this year.