The agreement reached by Bradford Council with its workforce around 1980, under which staff get an extra day off for Easter and the August bank holiday, seems ludicrously outdated from the more service-conscious perspective of 2002.

It also seems highly unfair on the council taxpayers, few of whom enjoy the privilege of this extra time off themselves. Not only are they denied many of the services their taxes fund for two days of each year but they find themselves paying double time to those council employees who need to be on duty.

So it is encouraging that chief executive Ian Stewart and union representatives are currently in talks about how to bring this anomaly to as painless an end as possible.

Mr Stewart is right to consider that the Council is there to provide a service to the public. It is failing to do so if on what most of the public would regard as normal working days they are unable to contact services such as cleansing, street lighting and housing.

As these two days are part of the workers' annual holiday entitlement, there surely should be no problem reaching a deal for them to be taken, staggered, at other times of the year. The sticking point will perhaps be the loss of the double-time payment that has traditionally gone to those who have had to work on these "privilege days".

Most people working in the private sector where such arrangements are generally unknown would probably consider that this money has been a 20-year annual windfall which should now be brought to an end.