Fair work action plan: annual report

5. A Look Ahead

Over the course of the coming year, we will work closely with stakeholders, including the Fair Work Convention, to develop and articulate our vision for a Fair Work Nation by 2025, ensuring it aligns with the Scottish Government's wider aims for a Just Transition to a decarbonised economy and the creation of a Wellbeing economy.

Delivery in the meantime will continue at pace. We will continue with the further roll out of Fair Work First by extending conditionality in public spending to help expand and embed Fair Work practice across the labour market. We will do this through engagement with CoSLA and the NHS, further city deals, and community wealth building projects. It is vital that we are able to measure the impact of Fair Work First in achieving real change. Working with the Fair Work Convention and other key partners we will develop a monitoring tool to measure the impact of Fair Work First within funded organisations and grants, and will evaluate Fair Work First, including the criteria and the effectiveness of the guidance, to refine our approach and extend our reach yet further.

We will continue to provide direct support to help improve equality and diversity in work places through the projects supported by the Workplace Equality Fund and Women Returner's Programme and will evaluate these to inform further work to improve diversity and inclusion at work.

Strengthening effective voice in the workplace will continue to be a key Fair Work priority, and we will build this at all levels, including for our young people in schools through expanded on-line delivery of the Unions into Schools programme in the Highlands and Islands. We will also continue to support the STUC to build capacity within trade unions to support Fair Work, and progress activity to increase collective bargaining arrangements and national agreements across Scotland.

With a focus on key sectors of the economy, we will monitor and reflect upon the Fair Work Convention's Construction Inquiry to promote the embedding of Fair Work across the sector. We will also respond to the recommendations on adoption of Fair Work within the social care sector contained in the Feeley report on the future of the sector

We will continue our partnership with the Poverty Alliance, to increase payment of the real Living Wage through Living Wage places and develop a Living Hours approach for Scotland to tackle in-work poverty.

Within the Scottish Government we will support the Scottish Government Fair Work Champion to maximise their influence in advancing Fair Work priorities internally and across Scotland with our key stakeholders. As an employer we will also support the development of the Scottish Government's own refreshed People Strategy ensuring that Fair Work remains at its heart.

As we see the ongoing impacts of the UK's exit from the European Union we will continue to promote our Fair Work agenda with the UK Government with a view to protecting and enhancing workers' rights, and press for the devolution of employment powers.

In all we do we will maintain our close working with the Fair Work Convention to articulate our shared Fair Work Nation vision, and monitor and measure progress.