Greater Manchester social care staff to be guaranteed Living Wage under plans to improve city-region pay

As Greater Manchester moves to become the UK’s first Living Wage City-region, Mayor Andy Burnham has announced that social care staff across all ten boroughs will earn at least the real Living Wage.

The pay uplift, made on 14th March at an event in Manchester city centre, came as part of a host of policy announcements aimed at making the city-region ‘greener, fairer and more prosperous.’ The acceleration of bus franchising in the city-region was also announced at the same event, along with the appointment of Paralympian Dame Sarah Storey as the new Active Travel Commissioner for Greater Manchester.

In November 2021, Greater Manchester set out to become the UK’s first Living Wage City-region, and the latest announcement will see all social care workers in over half of the city-region’s boroughs earning the £9.90 per hour Real Living Wage as set by the Living Wage Foundation by the end of year. The remaining boroughs are on track to make the shift by 2023.

Under plans, local authorities will pledge to stipulate payment of the Real Living Wage in their contracts with 3rd party adult care providers.

Mayor Andy Burnham said: 

“Greater Manchester is the first city-region to commit to paying the real Living Wage to social care workers. We want to ensure that people working in Greater Manchester receive fair pay, have decent working conditions, and experience opportunities to develop and progress. Greater Manchester is the first Living Wage City Region in the UK, working to help make the real Living Wage the norm and address in-work poverty.

“Greater Manchester has come a long way in a short space of time. But the pandemic has laid bare inequalities in our city-region. In this new era for this place, all parts of Greater Manchester will come together and deliver a fairer, greener, more prosperous conurbation for every person living and working here.”

Also announced were plans for GMCA and the city-region’s ten borough councils to only procure from companies that pay the Living Wage by 2023, support good employment and have plans in place to become carbon neutral.