Staff at Brent Council will be given an extra day of holiday this Christmas in recognition of their work during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Its general purposes committee agreed to sanction Christmas Eve (December 24) as an additional day of annual leave for the council’s workforce.

It will be treated as a bank holiday, with services following the out of hours procedure attached to regular holidays.

A report presented to the committee said the gesture would “acknowledge the commitment of Brent staff throughout the year in the most difficult of circumstances”.

It noted that Brent was among the hardest hit areas by Covid-19 and the council had to “rise to challenges that even 12 months ago no one could have foreseen”.

According to the report, staff continued to provide “outstanding” day-to-day services and thought of new ways to manage the crisis.

The committee noted that while the decision would not provide any financial savings to the council, since the civic centre would remain open, the “positive impact will be well received and very welcome at what is still, and will be into the foreseeable future, a very difficult time”.