THE LIVING Wage Foundation is the voluntary campaign which has been around for about 12 years, encouraging businesses to sign up voluntarily to pay the real living wage, which has been calculated based on the cost of living and is £8.25 an hour outside of London.
Tom Skinner, the Greater Manchester campaign leader for the Living Wage Foundation, said: “We take it as a great compliment that the Chancellor has co-opted our term.
“But it has been co-opted because a living wage is based on the cost of living and £7.20, just like any previous minimum wage, is essentially based on what the government wants to bring it to and what the market can afford. We are still encouraging people to voluntarily sign up to the real living wage.”
Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce was the first Chamber in the UK to be accredited as a Living Wage Foundation employer about 18 months ago.
Christian Spence, head of policy at Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, said: “Our message to employers is that all the evidence shows a fundamental benefit to the bottom line.”
Not-for-profit company Procure Plus works with housing associations on construction sites across the North West, Yorkshire & Humberside and the Midlands. It has an annual turnover of £150m and creates around 300 jobs a year – and it has signed up to the Foundation’s real living wage.
Chief executive Mike Brogan said: “We feel that the living wage is only fair and reasonable. If those people were to have more disposable income, that would help everybody else’s business. But it is also fair to say that someone on minimum wage would not feel great about the fact that their employer is paying them the minimum they can get away with.”
IT services company ANS Group, which employs 250 staff, signed up to the Living Wage Foundation’s real living wage in December.
Paul Shannon, chief operating officer, said: “That was not an insignificant undertaking. In the tech sector there is an expectation that people will be able to earn above the government’s living wage. We have a very large apprentice academy, with lots of people being trained by ANS employees to increase the skills pool, because there were just not enough tech based skilled employees that we could recruit.”
Those who graduate from the company’s one-year apprenticeship scheme receive the real living wage.
“It is an extremely aggressive initiative that not many other tech sector companies are doing in the first year. The big risk for us is that we produce highly skilled apprentices because we train them in what we want, not what colleges are doing, so they come out very highly skilled in a short space of time.
“Competitors are then willing, because they have made no significant investment in training themselves, to pay enough over what we pay to be attractive for people. We try to maintain loyalty by big investment. But that’s the risk for us. Thankfully one that hasn’t come to haunt us yet as we’ve managed to retain the lion share of apprentices within the business.”
In November, small business Bradley’s Bakery, which employs 10 staff in Ashton-under-Lyne, was also accredited as a living wage employer. It signed up after it was asked to supply pies to FC United, which requires all of its suppliers to pay the Foundation’s living wage.
Owner Gillian Bradley said: “I’d not heard of it but already paid well above the minimum wage so went for accreditation. By paying that we have good staff retention. Staff put the work in as they are working for a good wage.”
But she admits the business is now “at the limit” of what it can pay.
Skinner said: “To give encouragement, in terms of what happens when people are accredited as a Real Living Wage employers versus their competitors, you will see greater retention rates – recruitment is often the biggest hidden cost for businesses and we have a high staff turnover rate in this country. Also, when at the lower end of the spectrum you pay people more and they spend more, it doesn’t go offshore.”
Round table attendees
Ian Storey, chief financial officer, Music Magpie
Christian Spence, head of policy, Gtr Mcr Chamber of Commerce
Phil Eckersley, managing director, Bridgewater Homecare
Tom Skinner, Greater Manchester campaign leader, Living Wage Campaign
David Fox, managing director, Tampopo
John Perkins, non-exec director, Floorbrite
Richard Walker, chief executive, Optimo
Paul Shannon, chief operating officer, ANS
Mike Brogan, chief executive, Procure Plus
Gillian Bradley, owner, Bradley’s Bakery
Jonathan Dobkin, managing director, Connections
Murray Patt, managing director, Alexander Knight & Co
