It is commendable that action is being taken to tackle the pay gap that many local authority workers find themselves in.

Under the Government's new Single Status propsals, many of the lowest-paid workers will find themselves bumped up to more equitable salaries, particularly women, who have traditionally been paid less than their male counterparts in jobs such as care work, cleaning and catering.

While such a move is long overdue, and no-one would begrudge any person the pay that they deserve, it does leave councils such as Bradford with a problem.

It appears that Bradford Council might have to stump up £13 million to address the gap in pay among its employees.

Bradford Council only has finite cash reserves, and these have to be spent on a great deal of services for local people.

With residents already facing up to a council tax increase of at least 4.5 per cent, the fear now is that the Council will have to decide between either further tax increases or having to slash services to find the money to pay for Single Status.

As this has been imposed upon the Council by the Government, it doesn't seem right that the onus for making up the salaries has to come directly from Council coffers.

Surely it is only fair that the Government should stump up at least some of the cash to help local authorities implement the proposals?