Agenda item

That this Council:-

(a)       notes that 4^th - 10^th November is Living Wage Week, and that the Living Wage is calculated by the Centre for Research in Social Policy at £7.20 per hour, compared to the national minimum wage of £6.19 per hour;

(b)       notes recent research from  KPMG indicating that 4.82 million people across the country are paid less than the Living Wage, which amounts to one in five workers in the UK;

(c)        notes that a Living Wage has been introduced in other areas across the country where several leading public and private sector organisations have signed up to the campaign;

(d)       believes that paying the living wage boosts the incomes of the lowest paid, who have been hit especially hard by rising prices, increasing costs of living and the double dip recession;

(e)       supports this Administration’s commitment to providing the Living Wage of £7.20 per hour for all Council employees from 1^st January 2013;

(f)         welcomes that this commitment from the present Administration means that from January next year all staff employed by Sheffield City Council will be paid a wage of at least £7.20 per hour, which will see an increase for the lowest paid 275 staff on the lowest two grades at the Council;

(g)       regrets that Council staff have seen their pay frozen for the past two years in order to protect as many jobs and services as possible given the massive cuts imposed by the Government and notes that consultation is currently taking place with trade unions to extend the increment freeze, acknowledging that if increments were frozen again the Council would save £5 million per year, however, implementing a living wage would target raising the incomes of the Council’s lowest paid staff;

(h)        supports the present Administration’s commitment to meet the cost of the Living Wage at the same time as making a £1 million saving through cuts to senior management positions; and

(i)         directs that a report is brought to Cabinet outlining plans to implement a Living Wage in the Council and to initiate a campaign to support a Living Wage for Sheffield involving partners across the City in public, private and voluntary sector organisations.

It was moved by Councillor Julie Dore, seconded by Councillor George Lindars Hammond, that this Council:-

(a)       notes that 4^th - 10^th November is Living Wage Week, and that the Living Wage is calculated by the Centre for Research in Social Policy at £7.20 per hour, compared to the national minimum wage of £6.19 per hour;

(b)       notes recent research from  KPMG indicating that 4.82 million people across the country are paid less than the Living Wage, which amounts to one in five workers in the UK;

(c)        notes that a Living Wage has been introduced in other areas across the country where several leading public and private sector organisations have signed up to the campaign;

(d)       believes that paying the living wage boosts the incomes of the lowest paid, who have been hit especially hard by rising prices, increasing costs of living and the double dip recession;

(e)       supports this Administration’s commitment to providing the Living Wage of £7.20 per hour for all Council employees from 1^st January 2013;

(f)         welcomes that this commitment from the present Administration means that from January next year all staff employed by Sheffield City Council will be paid a wage of at least £7.20 per hour, which will see an increase for the lowest paid 275 staff on the lowest two grades at the Council;

(g)       regrets that Council staff have seen their pay frozen for the past two years in order to protect as many jobs and services as possible given the massive cuts imposed by the Government and notes that consultation is currently taking place with trade unions to extend the increment freeze, acknowledging that if increments were frozen again the Council would save £5 million per year, however, implementing a living wage would target raising the incomes of the Council’s lowest paid staff;

(h)        supports the present Administration’s commitment to meet the cost of the Living Wage at the same time as making a £1 million saving through cuts to senior management positions; and

(i)         directs that a report is brought to Cabinet outlining plans to implement a Living Wage in the Council and to initiate a campaign to support a Living Wage for Sheffield involving partners across the City in public, private and voluntary sector organisations.

Whereupon, it was moved by Councillor Shaffaq Mohammed, seconded by Councillor Colin Ross, as an amendment, that the Motion now submitted be amended by:-

1.         the deletion of paragraphs (g) and (h);

2.         the addition of new paragraphs (g) to (m) as follows:-

(g)       praises the previous Administration for implementing a £250 pay award for low-paid Council staff, whilst other members of staff were facing a pay freeze;

(h)        yet recalls with disappointment that the current Administration did not adopt the intention of the previous Administration to proceed with the award as a two-year annual increase;

(i)         furthermore, recalls the decision of Labour councillors to vote down the main opposition group’s 2012/13 budget amendment, thereby protecting the salaries of highly-paid staff, at the expense of low-paid jobs like binmen and care workers;

(j)         therefore regrets that the current Administration’s record on supporting the low-paid has not always lived up to their rhetoric;

(k)        however, supports this Council’s commitment to implement a Living Wage and hopes that this policy will apply to agency staff as well as directly-employed Council staff;

(l)         furthermore, encourages companies to whom the Council outsources services, to pay their staff a living wage; and

(m)      equally welcomes reports that the current Administration plan to reduce senior management positions by £1 million but believes they could go further in reducing back office costs; and

3.         the relettering of the original paragraph (i) as a new paragraph (n).

On being put to the vote, the amendment was negatived.

The votes on the amendment were ordered to be recorded and were as follows:

(Note: 13 Members present at the meeting at the time the vote was taken did not record their vote on the electronic voting system.)

It was then moved by Councillor Jillian Creasy, seconded by Councillor Robert Murphy, as an amendment, that the Motion now submitted be amended by:-

1.         the addition of the words “and notes that it was first proposed in a motion to Full Council by the smallest opposition group in 2009” at the end of paragraph (e); and

2.         the deletion of paragraphs (h) and (i) and the addition of new paragraphs (h) to (k) as follows:-

(h)        welcomes reducing genuinely unnecessary management positions but notes that that the approximate £70,000 cost of delivering the Living Wage would be covered several times over by reducing the pay of all employees paid over £50,000 by 10%, a measure which would also reduce the divisive gap between what Council staff at the lowest and highest scales are paid;

(i)         believes that many companies contracted to the Council currently pay below the current living wage;

(j)         notes the recent report by One Society “Leading the Way on Fair Pay” that stated “Whilst some local authorities may fear that extending the Living Wage to contractors might have substantial adverse impact on budgets, those who have put this into effect have not found this to be so.”; and

(k)        directs that a report is brought to Cabinet outlining plans to implement a Living Wage in the Council, explore the options with regard to making Living Wage a mandatory requirement of future Council contracts, and to initiate a campaign to support a Living Wage for Sheffield involving partners across the City in public, private and voluntary sector organisations.

On being put to the vote, the amendment was negatived.

It was then moved by Councillor Harry Harpham, seconded by Councillor John Robson, as a further amendment, that the Motion now submitted be amended by:-

1.         the insertion between the words “per hour” and “compared to” in paragraph (a) of the words “and this will increase to £7.45 per hour for 2013/14”; and

2.         the addition of the words “and from April 2013 this will increase to £7.45 per hour” at the end of paragraph (f)

On being put to the vote, the amendment was carried.

The original Motion, as amended, was then put as a Substantive Motion in the following form and carried:-