The Economics of Arrival

Every month economists and commentators pour over the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures, and at budget times we worry about the projections published by the Fiscal Commission and the Office of Budget Responsibility. Including those great fan charts that show the wide range of forecasts that are supposed to measure economic growth.

Since the 1930s GDP has become the primary target for government and international comparison. This has led to an era of mass consumerism and an expectation of endless GDP growth. Despite what we know about the environmental impact of growth on our finely balanced planet, the solution to all our economic and social ills is apparently even more growth.

A new book by Katherine Trebeck and Jeremy Williams, ‘The Economics of Arrival’, invites us to consider a future where economic progress might not mean endless growth. In Scotland, we know Katherine best from her work at Oxfam on the Scottish economy and the Humankind Index. This book is a natural expansion of that thinking.

Before anyone dismisses this as anti-growth, the authors acknowledge the benefits that economic growth has delivered. In the decade to 2012, all countries accelerated their achievement in the Human Development Index. There have been dramatic reductions in child mortality and levels of poverty, common diseases are being controlled, and more children are attending school with a consequential increase in adult literacy. We live in an extraordinary age, and much has been achieved. 

However, you just knew there was going to be a ‘but’! Growth on its own does not automatically help people to move out of poverty. Growth only translates into real progress when resources are shared, including on collective institutions and socially constructive purposes such as health and education. 

For example, Egypt under Mubarak regularly posted growth rates of 6-7%, but 90% of the population never benefited. The United Nations Development Programme identifies different forms of negative growth. These include ‘jobless growth' that does not create employment, ‘ruthless growth' in which the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, and ‘futureless growth' that comes at the expense of the environment.

Much of this book aims to explain how the fruits of growth are coming to an end. As we prioritise growth over security for all we are seeing an increase in the diseases of affluence, environmental degradation, and even stalling life expectancy, as the recent ScotPHO report shows. If we are in a global growth race, when do we reach the finishing line?

The authors persuasively argue that improvement in people's quality of life is not on an endless upward curve as social progress is decoupled from GDP growth. Alternative indexes show that social progress slows when countries reach middle-income status. This can drive demands for spending that equates to ‘failure demand', not dissimilar to the approach described in systems thinking.

They ask us to embrace the concept of ‘Arrival’ and making ourselves at home. Countries need to become better at focusing on the quality of the economy instead of its size - pursuing further growth risks undoing the achievements already realised. This is not a new concept. Even Adam Smith back in 1776 imagined a country that had “a full complement of riches”. 

This book does not offer a new system of post-growth economics that we can switch over to. It recognises that moving to these alternatives will be an evolutionary process. There is no grand top-down vision – it is something that people and communities need to discover together.

Making ourselves at home means sharing wealth more widely, rather than permitting a few to pathologically hoard it. Getting things right the first time and so avoiding the harm and costs that come with a blinkered focus on more. Surveys tell us that we are at our happiest when socialising and engaging in meaningful activity, not when consuming.

This does require a profound cultural shift as well as an economic and political one. Practical measures might include shifting taxation from income to luxury goods, wealth, land and unearned income. Shared and better work, ending the economic reliance on unpaid work, mostly done by women. This is also where the ‘foundational economy’ can contribute, developing a circular economy, co-operatives and new business practices. All of this has to be underpinned by a vibrant and responsive democracy.

There are some examples in the book where these principles are present. Some South American countries and, perhaps surprisingly, Japan. GDP growth in Japan stopped growing in the mid-nineties, but they score highly on almost every other measure, even though they are reluctant to accept they have arrived and challenge their work-based society. Costa Rica overperforms on alternative indexes, delivering longer life expectancy and higher wellbeing than the US, but with just one-third of the ecological footprint.

Of course, there will be massive resistance to change from those who perceive that they benefit from the current system. The authors distil Meadows ‘4 Tasks' approach:

• ·     Highlight the failures of the current system. 
• ·     Paint a compelling picture of what a new economic model might look like. 
• ·     Work with people who have power in the current system, or who could gain it. 
• ·     Support people who are seeking and delivering change themselves, and those who are open minded, leaving those who are unlikely to change where they are.

A key ingredient of change is the development of alternative measurements to GDP. There has been some work on this in Scotland and elsewhere, including the Oxfam Humankind Index for Scotland. These show that there are better ways of measuring genuine progress than a simple increase in economic activity.

No single project will change the system, but many small steps over time will. This book suggests steps for international institutions and governments. Steps for business, cities and local communities. And steps for individuals. There is no avoiding action!

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In conclusion, as the authors say, the last few decades of growth have brought immense benefits, but those gains have been unevenly shared and are at risk of slipping away as the environment and society come under increasing pressure. We need to reimagine progress beyond more of the same. This book is a great starting point.

Austerity is killing us

Two reports published today show that the increase in life expectancy in Scotland has now stalled and that health inequalities have worsened.

One report compares life expectancy trends in Scotland to those seen internationally. The other report explores the relationship between stalling mortality improvements and socioeconomic inequalities.

The international comparative report shows that 2012-2016 life expectancies in Scotland increased by 2.5 weeks/year for females and 4.5 weeks/year for males, the smallest gains of any period since the early 1970s. The best estimate of when mortality rates changed to a slower rate of improvement in Scotland was the year to 2012 for males and the year to 2014 for females.  Among the UK countries Scotland has the lowest life expectancy, with a life expectancy 2 years lower for women, and 2.5 years lower for men than in England.

Of the 24 high-income countries for which data was available, nearly all had smaller life expectancy gains in 2012-2016 than in the immediately preceding period. Denmark is notable for having maintained mean life expectancy gains of around 10 weeks/year among females across the period 1997-2016, and even greater gains among males.

The second report concludes that as mortality improvements in Scotland stalled in 2012-2017, socioeconomic gradients in mortality became steeper. With increased mortality rates over this period in the most socioeconomically deprived fifth of the population.

This table shows what we already know and what additional information this reports gives us.

Dr Gerry McCartney, Head of the Public Health Observatory at NHS Health Scotland, said:

“What we see here is a worrying trend. Life expectancy not only gives an indication of how long people are likely to live, but also serves as a ‘warning light’ for the public’s health. In addition, the fact that socioeconomic position now plays a bigger role in how long you live than it did before is cause for concern.”

The question is why these figures are going in the wrong direction, bucking a long standing trend since the Second World War. Gerry suggests that austerity is the strongest factor:

 “There are likely to be a number of factors at play. The strongest candidates are recent policies that address recent economic setbacks which have reduced spending on benefits, squeezed incomes and trapped people in poverty – these may all have contributed. Cuts to council budgets and pressures on key local services, such as social care, could also have had an impact. There have been some severe flu outbreaks in recent years which will have increased demands on services too.”

He suggests three key actions:

• Protecting budgets that determine our health, like social care, housing, benefits etc. And ensuring they are provided according to need.
• Reducing poverty for all groups and protecting the most vulnerable.
• Maximise the take up of the flu vaccine.

While pension funds may regard these figures as having something of a silver lining, they are bad news for almost everyone else. Governments and policy makers should be taking particular notice, and develop appropriate responses. Austerity isn’t just damaging the economy, it is literally killing us.

The Common Good

Austerity has undermined many of the local institutions that bind our communities together. Cuts to our libraries, community learning, youth work, day centres and grants to voluntary organisations have all contributed to a sense of isolation.

While action on individual social isolation is essential, we also need to think about the role of social infrastructure. This relates to the physical conditions that determine whether personal relationships can flourish. When social infrastructure is robust, it fosters contact, mutual support, and collaboration among friends and neighbours. When degraded, it inhibits social activity, leaving families and individuals to fend for themselves.

I was brought back to this concept by reading Eric Klinenberg’s book ‘Palaces for the People: How to Build a More Equal and United Society’. He looked at two districts in Chicago after the 1995 heatwave. They had similar socio-economic characteristics, but one district had a much higher death rate. The difference wasn't cultural or about how much people cared about each other – it was that poor social infrastructure discouraged interaction and impeded mutual support.

Libraries are the best example of Klinenberg’s ‘Palaces for the People’. They are accessible and organised by professional staff that uphold a principled commitment to openness and inclusivity. A café might be, but it depends on the degree of openness, cost etc. Similarly, an early years centre where parents meet up at the same time is social infrastructure, but not a childcare centre in a commercial area where parents pop in and out to match their working hours.

Some might argue that this is less important in the internet age. Klinenberg argues that communication technologies work best when they direct us to physical spaces that everyone can access. Ironically, the sort of areas that the tech giants create in their own workplaces. The excesses of internet culture and the ‘echo chamber' patterns of use, add to the problem. It feeds what social scientists call ‘bonding social capital’, but starves us of the ‘bridging social capital’ we need to live together.

Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of Facebook as social infrastructure is flimsy because it cannot give us what we get from churches, unions, sports clubs and the welfare state. The primary aim is to keep us glued to the screens.

Safe, green spaces are another essential part of social infrastructure. This includes parks and gardens, but also in the design of housing developments. Studies show that the greener the immediate surroundings of a building, the lower the rate of crime. Although this only works when they are well maintained and so used by residents, creating passive surveillance and feelings of greater ownership and control.

Social infrastructure is also essential for health – the more physical environmental deprivation, the worse the community’s health. For example, with the opioid crisis in the US and rising levels of poor mental health in the UK, we overlook the importance of social cohesion and social support. A 2017 Harvard study, by Michael Zoorob, shows that communities with strong social capital were more likely to be insulated from the opioid crisis. Other studies point to the value of community gardens or allotments to us. Chicago has spent $2.5m on its inspirational 21,000 square-foot City Hall roof garden. In Singapore, the open spaces associated with housing projects are used for exercise, meetings, affordable dining and markets.

Public sports and leisure facilities have been squeezed due to austerity cuts. In Iceland, they have free swimming pools or ‘hot pots’ that are used by people from all walks of life – one per 2,750 residents. Mind you, the rule that everyone must strip naked and wash off in a public area before entering the tubs, might be a reform too far for Scotland! 

Organised sports can build similar social interaction. In the UK, 80% of people who play organised sport have friends in the organisation, a much higher rate than for other organisations. Along with people who regularly attend church, they are more likely to volunteer in other civic projects.

In Scotland, we have a historical manifestation of social infrastructure in our local Common Good funds. A 2014 Scottish Government report identified more than £300m in these funds covering moveable and heritable property. These were often donated by landowners when they sold development land for towns. Several modern day tech entrepreneurs invest some of their gains into good projects, as did old ‘robber barons' like Andrew Carnegie. However, none of this is at the scale necessary to create the social infrastructure we need.  

Another feature of our crumbling social infrastructure is the decline of the high street in most of our towns. If you listen to some voices, all that is required is a cut in business rates. What we actually need is to rebuild them as social infrastructure. Doncaster is one town that is fighting back, with the opening of a new cultural and learning centre, and retail shops that offer something different. Others talk about replacing the acquisition of goods and services on the high street with local experiences. 

Community Hubs that bring together public services are another idea that could contribute to the revitalisation of our high streets. I discuss this in more detail in my Jimmy Reid Foundation paper on public service reform. 

George Monbiot highlights projects in Barking and Dagenham, including ‘maker spaces’ equipped with laser cutters and other technology. Places where people meet, discuss ideas and start projects. Turning old warehouses and churches into community facilities where people can start collaborative businesses and welcome new arrivals to the area. As George says, “Perhaps it’s not the whole answer to our many troubles. But it looks to me like a bright light in a darkening world.” 

Since the 1980s, anti-tax ideology has whittled down the public funds we need to build and maintain critical infrastructures - austerity has been the last straw. As we replace crumbling physical infrastructure, we should also consider how it might contribute towards strengthening our social infrastructure. A modern version of the Common Good.

2019 - the big challenges ahead

Happy New Year! Traditionally a time to think ahead and a good time to consider the big challenges facing Scotland and the wider world.

At present, Brexit dominates the policy discourse and, within Scotland at least, the constitutional implications for devolution or another independence referendum. Important though these issues may be, they are, in military parlance, grand tactical issues. We also need to think about the strategic challenges facing Scotland over the next ten to twenty years.

I was reading Nicholas Timmins biography of the welfare state; ‘The Five Giants’, which captures the mood of the post-war period and Beveridge’s five giant evils – Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. You can easily make the case that these evils still abound in Scotland and the rest of the UK. However, it got me thinking about what those ‘giants’ might be today.

For me, there is one overwhelming evil – inequality. One million people in Scotland live in poverty, including 230,000 children and 140,000 pensioners. If you are disabled or a member of a minority ethnic group, you are significantly more likely to be in poverty. Poverty is not just a condition, it is a matter of life and death. Healthy life expectancy can vary by as much as 28 years between the most and least deprived areas of our country. 

Almost all political parties accept that poverty is a bad thing. The difference is when you discuss not just poverty, but inequality. Scotland’s richest 1% have more wealth than the bottom 50% put together. As Rebecca McQuillan points out in today’s Scotsman, it’s the same worldwide. We have an economic system that is designed to make the wealthy few richer, at the expense of the many. 

The Tories argue that you can address poverty without worrying about inequality. I have noticed a concerted right-wing effort to challenge the seminal work on this issue, ‘The Spirit Level’, which explains why more equal societies do better on almost every measure. Despite all the evidence, trickle-down economics is still championed by some. 

At the recent Living Wage awards, an SNP minister quoted The Spirit Level favourably, so this should point to a consensus on the direction of travel. The problem is that the SNP government has been unwilling the take the necessary radical action.  There has been plenty of processes, but policy measures have generally been timid. Being better than England is not enough.

My second modern giant would be climate change. The latest UN report says we have twelve years to simply limit a climate change catastrophe, by keeping the increase in global warming below 1.5C. As today’s Scottish Environment Link report shows, our diverse fauna and flora, as well as wildlife, are also at risk, with consequences for food and pollination. As with other challenges the international response has been too timid and Scotland could do more - including the Climate Change Bill currently going through Parliament.

My third modern giant would be disempowerment. The UK is over-centralised and London sucks in too much power and resource. While devolution has been an important step forward, too many powers stop at Holyrood and others are taken from local government. Economic power continues to be grabbed by big corporations, largely unchecked by regulation or industrial democracy. Devolving power must be accompanied by new forms of deliberative democracy, which give citizens a real say in how our society is run. Strengthening collective bargaining could have a similar impact in the workplace.

My fourth modern giant would be a broken society. Too much emphasis is placed on economic performance and too little on the impact on human beings and the communities of place and interest they live in. Much has been written about the economic impact of an ageing population, without considering the opportunities. Automation at work is used to exploit the workforce rather than liberate them. Isolation, intolerance and our consumer culture are contributing to a broken society, where we patch and mend the mental health consequences, rather than tackle the root causes. We need to focus on creating a good society.

The policy challenge with these modern evils is that governments tend to work in departmental silos. I know from my own work experience how difficult it is to agree, let alone deliver, solutions that cut across departmental boundaries. For example, health inequality has little to do with a health department that is focused on managing the NHS. It requires cross-cutting action on housing, social security, employment and the environment. Even the four modern giants I have suggested above, cut across each other in so many ways. 

Chasing solutions without fully understanding the causes of the problems that face our society is a process doomed to failure. So, in 2019, let’s try and raise our vision beyond the immediate challenges and look at the long-term measures needed to create a more equal Scotland and work with others for a better world.

Health and care integration report card - could do better

Audit Scotland tries hard to use building language in their reports, but it was obviously a real challenge when it comes to health and care integration.

Audit Scotland has recently published their assessment of the progress with health and care integration in Scotland. Helpfully, as I was preparing a presentation for an English conference on how we tackle this issue in Scotland. You could be forgiven for missing this report as it came out on the day of the Brexit resignations.

As usual they introduce the report with a helpful infographic which captures the key challenges. Integration Authorities (IAs) manage a huge proportion of the Scottish budget (£9bn) and are supposed to achieve £222.5m of savings - an increase of 8.4%.

The positives are that IAs have started to introduce more collaborative ways of working and there are a number of case studies in the report that highlight best practice. This shows that the system can work, however, yes you knew there would be a but, “there is much more to be done”. 

The building language then starts to break down.

They main problem is that financial planning “is not integrated, long term or focused on providing the best outcomes for people who need support”. This is caused by the financial pressures on health boards and councils, compounded by health boards not including their acute services to the process of budget shift. Long term planning is difficult when budgets are set annually, with little medium term, let alone long term, strategic planning. However, an overall underspend by IAs of nearly £40m, does not inspire confidence either.

This doesn’t mean that there is no resource shift because the ISD cost data published yesterday shows a loss of 429 hospital beds. This data also shows that community services are getting more resources, with only a 0.1% increase in hospital spending as against 4.8% in the community sector. GPs have pointed to the fall in the amount devoted to GP services, but this may be related to service redesign. Either way, while there has been some shift from acute to community, progress is slow because of the overall financial position. 

The report also highlights a lack of collaborative leadership and strategic capacity, not helped by a high turnover in IA leadership teams and squabbles over governance arrangements. Cultural differences between partner organisations is another barrier to achieving collaborative working along with the necessary skills to work in partnership. This was predicted, and has been a problem all over the world (see Petch et al) with care integration.

Another lesson from the international evidence is that change cannot happen without meaningful engagement with staff, communities and politicians. Something the report says has not yet been achieved in Scotland. Honesty about the scale of change needed is indeed challenging, particularly when it can involve closing hospital services. Lengthy and technical IJB papers have not helped to engage members on these boards.

Workforce planning is crucial to the success of care integration. While the National Workforce Plans have now been published, they are still largely at the process stage, particularly in social care. There needs to be a better understanding of future demand, how this is likely to be met and what it will cost. Needless to say, Brexit looms large over this issue. Attempts by some IA leadership teams to promote the privatisation of services has not helped to build confidence. As UNISON surveys have shown, the procurement rules are not being followed properly. If they were, the two-tier workforce provisions (s52) would end this nonsense.

Data sharing and incompatible IT systems are another problem. There are too many local fixes rather than considering a single national solution. Interestingly, the report points to bringing staff together under one roof, rather than solely relying on IT. This is something that the Quality Care Commission recommended in 2015.

Many of the challenges facing care integration in Scotland can be fixed as local best practice shows. There are some national actions that can help, but there is nothing in this report that wasn’t predicted or points to unresolvable structural failure. The underlying problem is austerity - making big service change is doubly difficult when the budget simply isn’t keeping up with increased demand.

Commemorating the sacrifices of the First World War

This is a very special Armistice day, marking the centenary of the end of the First World War. It ends four years of anniversaries that commemorate the events of that terrible conflict.

There can be little doubt that we are more aware of the First World War as a consequence of the huge effort that has gone into events marking the centenary. Financial investment from the Lottery, Arts Council and governments have been supplemented by books, films, TV and radio programmes. But has that investment challenged some of the common myths, or done enough to recognise that the conflict didn’t just affect young white men on the western front? 

The Scottish Government’s Commemorations Programme has attempted to widen the subject with events covering the sinking of the SS Tuscania off Islay and the Quintinshill rail crash. A conference and exhibition celebrating the work of Dr. Elsie Inglis was an example of highlighting the role of women – the Serbian post office even produced commemorative stamps. However, despite these efforts, the abiding memory will be of Scots who died in the battles on the western front – important of course that those events were.

There has been an effort to acknowledge the role of the four million non-British soldiers that fought in the conflict – David Olusoga’s TV series and this week’s focus on the Indian Army are good examples. There has also been more about the home front and local histories. However, in the main, they have been drowned out - the western front, poppies and Tommies remain the most familiar iconography.

Other important fronts get very little coverage. I suspect very few people understand the role the Macedonian campaign played in ending the war, even though it involved two British Corps. With Serbian and French troops they advanced as far as Austria. Let alone the huge battles on the eastern front, Italy and the Middle East – and lesser-known campaigns in Africa and the Far East 

On many of these fronts, the war and its consequences didn’t end on Armistice Day. The crumbling of empires, the Russian Civil War and the related Polish-Soviet War went on until 1921. The Greek-Turkish War resulted in the ethnic cleansing of 1.6 million people. For many countries, November 1918 marks independence or the dismembering of their state. Hungary lost half its population and two-thirds of its territory. 

Many of these events have a bearing on the Europe we live in today. As Guardian columnist Natalie Nougayrede put it; 

“The point is not that a unified narrative should be imagined. Rather, it is that we would all gain from better awareness of the mosaic of European memories of 1918. The Europe we live in today still has its roots in that past.”

The same is true for the wider world. The British and French ended the war with even bigger empires in the Far East, Africa and the Middle East. These created the conditions for future conflicts and were certainly a poisoned chalice for Britain.

Our perspective of the First World War has changed over the years. In the 1920’s the monuments used the language of glory, honour, dominion and power. As the war poet, Wilfred Owen said: “The old lie: Dulce et decorum est; Pro patria mori”.

At the other end of the spectrum, I was brought up in the period of, ‘Oh What a Lovely War!’ and the ‘Lions led by donkeys’ view of WW1 generals. There have been some revisions of that view and lessons were learned as the war progressed and generals unlearned the lessons of the last war. The BBC ‘100 days to Victory’ series covers some of this.

The BBC History Magazine asked two historians of the conflict the question, Was it Worth It? 

As Professor Richard Evans says, it is not the job of historians to tell people in the past what they got wrong, but rather to explain how and why things happened. However, he reminds us that millions of British soldiers who fought in 1914 didn’t have the right to vote – so it wasn’t a war for democracy. He argues that it actually ended progress towards greater democracy in many countries and replaced it with brutal and corrupt dictatorships. Much of this was caused by the economic disaster that was another consequence of the war.

On the other hand, Professor Gary Sheffield argues that imperfect though the world undoubtedly was in 1919, it would have been much worse if there had been a German victory. Even if the Royal Navy kept Britain free from occupation, it would have faced the nightmare of a hostile continental Europe and the end of liberal democracies. 

Whatever view we take of the historical events, it remains the case that millions gave their lives in the conflict and afterward, for a cause that, at the time, most people supported. They made the ultimate sacrifice and it is right that we should remember them - red or white poppy, in the way we each deem to be appropriate.

Living Wage Week

This is Living Wage Week, another opportunity to promote the benefits of the real living wage and fair work more widely.

The week traditionally starts with the announcement of the new Living Wage rates, which this year have increased to £9 per hour and £10.55 in London. The Resolution Foundation has published a briefing on how the rate was calculated this year. Wider inflation was obviously a key factor in the increase. In addition, some policy changes act as a downward pressure on the rates, for instance, the increase in the personal tax allowance and additional childcare support. Other policy changes create upward pressure including the ongoing freeze in working-age benefits.

I was at the Living Wage Expo at the Tynecastle Stadium in Edinburgh yesterday. Peter Kelly from the Poverty Alliance reminded the audience of how much progress had been made with the Scottish Living Wage - £216m into workers pockets, 34,000 workers getting a pay rise and more than 1300 accredited employers. We should also remember that many other workers have benefitted outwith accredited employers, due to procurement and collective bargaining.

It was good to see a public sector employer (even if they try to hide the fact!), Scottish Water Business Stream, getting the employee choice award. The nomination included a positive statement from a worker who explained what fair wages meant to them and how it changed their perception of the employer. 

This theme continued with a panel discussion involving Heart of Midlothian FC staff. They all described how the living wage meant they could afford what most of us regard as essentials, like holidays, transport etc. One young worker in the hospitality department highlighted the difference between £5.90 on the age-related minimum wage and £9 on the real living wage. The motivation of these workers was very apparent. Well done Hearts - time for other football clubs to follow!

The Minister for Business, Fair Work and Skills, Jamie Hepburn MSP set out the Scottish Government's aim of making Scotland a Fair Work nation. He rightly made the point that more equal societies do better on all tests, not just economically. He accepted that Scotland could do more as there are still one in five employees who are not yet receiving the living wage. I would point him to procurement, where policy has not always been matched by best practice.

The Outstanding Leadership Award went to Standard Life Aberdeen, who I would agree have been real private sector champions, not just with the living wage. They make the business case for the living wage, and in their sector, the wider benefits of trust and how it is a good measurement of company behaviour.

The living wage isn't just about big employers. One of the real successes of the living wage movement in Scotland has been the engagement from hundreds of small companies. Sarah Roberts from Healthy Nibbles is a good example of such a company and she set out the benefits for her firm and their workers. Importantly she emphasised the wider fair work agenda of her business. Other SMEs that have become accredited employers this year and were recognised in the awards as well.

As women are disproportionately represented in low pay workplaces, the living wage is also important in closing Scotland's gender pay gap. Anna Ritchie from Close the Gap pointed to the similarities in the business case for tackling the gender pay gap and the living wage.

Tess Lanning from the Living Wage Foundation reminded us that the living wage campaign started as a community campaign. This is something the campaign in Scotland is seeking to build on with the living wage place initiative. Including outsourced workers has also been important to the campaign, which has encouraged innovation in the workplace and extended the living wage beyond the core workforce. A good example is South Lanarkshire Council, who won the anchor institution award. They have increased the percentage of the workforce across the council area who are paid the living wage using the levers available to every local authority. I would also highlight North Ayrshire Council who were quick off the mark to commit to paying the new rate this week.

Dave Moxham from the STUC made the point that voluntary initiatives like the living wage are important in delivering real benefits to workers and promoting a different economic model. It supports the campaign for a higher statutory minimum wage and abolishing the age-related rates. Richard Leonard reiterated Scottish Labour’s commitment to a £10 per hour minimum wage this week.

Finally, I was very honoured to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. It does seem like a lifetime since we kicked off the living wage campaign in Scotland, but actually, a lot has been achieved in a short time. Like others, I have burnt out a few PowerPoint projector bulbs pitching the case, but my role has often been to tear down fallacious legal barriers and find ways around EU and other procurement rules. There is still a lot to do, but the campaign is in good hands.