North Ayrshire Council has committed to paying its staff the new Real Living Wage seven months early as part of its commitment to help people through the Cost-of-Living Crisis.
The new Real Living Wage rate of £10.90 per hour was announced on Thursday – a 10 per cent increase on the previous figure of £9.90.
And although the new rate is not due to be adopted by businesses and organisations until April 2023, the Council has committed to applying this rate of pay from the announcement date of Thursday, 22 September, 2022.
The announcement will benefit 961 Council employees in predominantly frontline roles.
Fiona Walker, Head of Service (People & ICT), said: “We are hugely thankful and appreciative of the work delivered by our staff and the efforts they put in every day, particularly given the challenges over the past couple of years.
“We are delighted that once again we are not only committing to paying the Real Living Wage, but paying it much earlier than scheduled. That means the staff receiving this will benefit from the rise straight away.”
North Ayrshire Council has paid the Real Living Wage since 2011 and is one of a number of local authorities from across Scotland to be officially accredited by the Scottish Living Wage Accreditation Initiative.
The Living Wage is an independently calculated figure which is updated annually to reflect the basic cost of living in the UK and is voluntarily paid by more than 11,000 businesses who believe their staff deserve a fair day’s pay for a hard day’s work.
According to the Living Wage Foundation, independent research on employers who have introduced the Living Wage has shown increases in employee productivity, greater staff retention and reduced sickness absence, and improved levels of morale, motivation and commitment.
Fiona added: “Everyone is affected by the current Cost-of-Living crisis and we will support our employees in any way we can.”
