Extending the Scottish Living Wage through procurement - vital in social care

A new UNISON Scotland Briefing has been published explaining how public bodies can use procurement to extend the Scottish Living Wage to all those working in public services.

Nearly all public sector workers in Scotland are now paid the Living Wage, (uprated this month to £8.25 per hour) but thousands who deliver public services in the community and private sectors don't yet receive it, particularly in social care.

New Statutory Guidance from the Scottish Government sets out how the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 enables all public bodies to spread the benefits. Previous legal objections no longer apply.

Infrastructure Secretary Keith Brown said that employers "must now recognise that they cannot adopt exploitative practices in relation to their workers and expect... lucrative public contracts."

The Guidance on Addressing Fair Work Practices sets out how public bodies can legally include payment of the Living Wage in contracts, along with other employment matters, such as trade union recognition and representation and no "inappropriate" use of zero hours contracts.

(The Living Wage is a voluntary level for over 18s, higher than the current statutory National Minimum Wage (NMW) of £6.70 per hour for over 21s. It is an independent calculation of what is required to cover the basic cost of living.

While the increased legal minimum announced by Chancellor George Osborne as a new National Living Wage (NLW) of £7.20 per hour for over 25s in his July 2015 Budget is welcome, it is in effect a higher NMW, not a real living wage. It is nothing like enough to compensate for cuts to tax credits. IPPR Scotland said for low and middle income Scottish families the impact is "vastly outweighed" by the cuts.)

It is vital to progress the Living Wage in social care, which is facing a growing staffing crisis. The Scottish Government, COSLA and care providers are currently involved in discussions about how best to drive up pay in the care at home/housing support sector, recognising the links between pay, quality of care, retention and recruitment etc.

An interim funding deal is likely, with work continuing on a more robust proposal for 2016/17, alongside analysis of the full financial impact of the NLW 2016 to 2020 announcement and the overall cost of residential and non-residential social care.

UNISON wants to see the Living Wage included in all social care contracts and will also press our Ethical Care Charter. However, we accept that this has to be fully funded.  We welcome the Scottish Labour party's proposal to pay the Living Wage to all those working in social care.

UNISON branches should study the guidance in detail and ensure that public bodies: revise their procurement strategy to include the Scottish Living Wage; specify compliance with the S52 guidance in procurement documents and the consequences for the LW; revise their tender evaluation procedures to take account of the LW and other employment and 'fair work' standards. These can include no zero or nominal-hours contracts, trade union recognition and the Ethical Care Charter.

Under the Act, public bodies are required to set out their general policy on the Living Wage in their procurement strategy. Bids can be evaluated against that policy and payment of the Living Wage can become an enforceable performance clause. For contracts with a strong workforce element, such as social care, there can be a significant weighting in the evaluation for workforce matters.

With a civil society coalition behind '10 Asks' on the legislation, we had called for the Living Wage to be mandatory for all those working on public contracts. The guidance does not go that far but is an improvement.

UNISON still believes that EU law would allow it to be set as a contract condition. Advocate General Mengozzi's opinion, given on 9 September 2015 in RegioPost GmbH v Stadt Landau (C-115/14), was that EU law did not prevent contracting authorities setting conditions relating to the payment of minimum wages.

Further Statutory Guidance later in 2015 will cover areas including the Sustainable Procurement Duty, fair trade and tax dodging. There is separate guidance on blacklisting.

We knew it anyway but now there's proof: Unions make you happy

We generally highlight the more material benefits of joining an union but a US study has found that being a union member actually makes you happy.
The study of happiness or life satisfaction is becoming increasingly popular: even the Tories are measuring it. Studies measure both how people say they feel, things they do like laugh and smile and some include asking participants' friends and family to rate the subjects happiness as well as professional and clinical assessments. UNISON has joined others like Oxfam in campaigning for wider of use of these types of measures rather than for example GDP as a measure of a country’s success.
Two American academics have used data from a range of life satisfaction studies to see whether membership of a trade union “contributes to a higher quality of life”. They found that union members are more satisfied with their lives than non members and that the effect of union membership “rivals other common predictors of quality of life” The effect was found regardless of age, income, gender or level of education.

We spend a great deal of time at work so how we experience that time has a massive impact on our well being. The researchers give four suggestions as to why unions are so effective in creasing our happiness:
Unions give members a route to influencing how their workplace operates, they have routes to appeal management decisions and processes to deal with group or individual problems. This makes work life more satisfactory
Union members are generally better paid and have more secure employment especially in the US. Unemployment and worry about unemployment are major predictors of poor mental and physical health. Union membership can therefore reduce this type of stress and anxiety.
Unions provide lots of opportunities to for social interaction both formally through meetings and through working together to achieve goals. This reduces loneliness and social isolation. Having professional networks both formal and informal also helps reduce job stress and improves your ability to do your job.
Unions promote active citizenship, there is a growing body of evidence that being active in a community and achieving things through this activity improves how we feel about ourselves and the communities in which we live
So as well as gaining better terms and conditions at work , lots of services like cheaper car insurance joining a union will make you happy. Who could say no to that?

Listen to Parents

Save the Children have collated the views of parents into a great report on childcare in Scotland. There is a remarkable consensus amongst parents about what the problems are and what they need. The high cost of childcare causes real problems for families across Scotland.

Parents in work either struggle to make ends meet because of the cost of childcare or use a complex mix of support from friends and family and childcare to keep costs down. Others give up work or don’t take up opportunities to work because the cost of care makes it unworkable. Even finding out what’s available for what age group is complex and time consuming. There is a catch 22 where you can’t confirm childcare arrangements until you know when you will be working or studying nor can you confirm when you could work or study until you have childcare sorted.

What we need is to look at the system as a whole. There is still a split between childcare and early years education with one paid for directly by parents and the other via taxation. Childminders and private nurseries while regulated by local authorities are not under their control. There is no strategic planning about how many are needed in each area, in fact no one knows:
• the level of demand/need for childcare in Scotland.
• how many more parents would be working if childcare was available/affordable
• how many hours of childcare parents want/need to balance the needs of their child and the need to earn money
• what mix parents would really like between childminder/nursery provision and providing that care themselves.

UNISON is a long-term supporter of publically delivered service free at the point of use. Delivering childcare in the sameway as post five-education will make the system, simpler, cheaper for families and of a higher and more consistent standard. As an IPPR report shows that the provision of childcare free at the point of use pays for itself in increased tax income from extra hours worked by women entering the workforce. The extra hours promised in the Children’s Bill are welcome but the whole system needs to change if we are to really move forward. The findings of this report suggest that parents would welcome this change.

Measuring Performance

The biggest area of agreement at yesterday’s Educational Attainment and Inequality seminar was that it is difficult to get enough of the right data to really understand what is going on in Scottish education. More importantly, harder to decide what action is needed to tackle the fact that children’s parent’s income still has such a big impact on their educational attainment. We all know that academics always agree that’s what’s needed is more research but what here they were calling for better access to that data that already exists.

The public sector in Scotland is a great collector of information, what it’s not so good at is sharing the data to enable external organisations to use it for research or scrutiny. While obviously the rights to privacy of citizens need to be protected, better use of all these records would help improve public services and scrutiny of government strategies. Speakers remarked yesterday that 2011 census data for Scotland has been very slow to emerge in comparison with the rest of the UK. This holds back planning in the public sector as well as academic research.

Scotland Performs was launched with much fanfare in 2008. The Scottish Government promised

“Visitors to the Scotland Performs website will be presented with highly visual and easy to understand pages. They will have quick access to information about the quality of life in Scotland, and where thing are getting better and where things are getting worse.

The finance secretary John Swinney said:
"Scotland Performs is about responsibility and accountability.”

"By making this information easy to access, and by showing exactly whether we as a country are doing well or need to do more, everyone in Scotland will have the ability to judge for themselves how Scotland is performing."

Scotland Performs has not lived up to this promise. The site is does not have easy to understand pages, does not provide “quick access to information” nor is there evidence of it being a strategic planning tool. Scotland Performs has surface similarities to Virginia Performs. The Virginia site offers both easy to read graphics and explanations/discussions of issues and extensive data for those seeking wider information or wishing to do their own analysis. Sites like Virginia Performs and Baltimore’s website (https://data.baltimorecity.gov/) give access to data that require freedom of information requests in Scotland, including the amounts of individual procurement contracts.

Better access to the data that the public sector holds rather than expensive consultants would really help us work out where we need to go to ensure a fairer Scotland.

Tackling Inequality on a Shrinking Budget

Local government budgets have been slashed but demands for their services are growing. Across the UK they are responding to in a range of ways: cutting jobs, privatisation, shutting down services and salami slicing. Camden Council is attempting to develop an approach which places tackling inequality at the centre of its decision making. The council set up an equality task force which included amongst others councillors (Labour, Liberal Democrats and Conservative), academics and child poverty campaigners. Sadly they council did not invite anyone from the recognised trade unions to take part. Having people who actually deliver services would have provided valuable insight for their report. The remit was to explore the reasons for inequality in Camden, consider the role of the council and its partners in tackling inequality, recommend solutions and make a “strong contribution” to national debates on the role of local public services and tackling inequality.


The task force reported on:
• What the council will do
• What it wants local partners to contribute
• What council should call on the government to do

Their key recommendations are that the council should focus on:

• Housing, including the concept of a living rent to go along side the living wage
• Increased participation in work, education and training for those aged 14-19: highlighting need for pre-apprenticeship and pre traineeship support
• Increased job opportunities for mothers to work: this means tackling the lack of quality, part-time, flexible jobs and exceptionally high childcare costs: Government restrictions on use of Direct schools puts their grant integrated children’s centres (with employment services, universal 25 hours childcare for three and four year olds), commissioning of borough wide play provision and drop in services at risk.
• Council’s role as an employer and using procurement to improve employment for non council staff
• Looking at the property portfolio to release funds for reinvestment in housing and housing repairs and make up for funding cuts
• plan Economic Growth Fund; the council spends over £900million on goods and should make better use of this spend to reduce inequality
• Explore options for residents to deliver public services

No wrong door borough: they suggest that all points of contact with citizens have staff who are equipped to handle the issues people bring even if out of daily remit.

The report is now working its way through the council’s decision making processes.

Until it is clearer how the strategy will be implemented and how it will impact on services and members it is difficult to comment fully on its merits. It is a shame though that there were no staff representatives on the task force. Unions are well placed to collate views of those who work in the services and understand how they operate on a days to day basis and therefore what improvements are necessary.

UNISON is a supporter of placing reducing inequality at the heart of public service delivery. Using the councils spending power and terms and conditions for staff is a really important way to tackle inequality particularly through ending low pay in the public and private sectors. It will interesting to see how the commitment develops and whether we can learn anything from it for our campaigns for a fairer scotland