Contractors delivering public contracts paying real living wage: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/17/02073
Date received: 12 September 2017
Date responded: 24 November 2017

Information requested

Information on (a) how many contractors delivering public contracts in Scotland pay, as a minimum, the real living wage (as defined by the Living Wage Foundation), (b) what percentage this is of total public contracts, and (c) for this information to be broken down by sector, specifically including (i) social care, (ii) childcare and early years, (iii) hospitality and tourism, (iv) construction, and (v) any other services provided by arms-length external organisations.

Response

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have all of the information you have asked for.

Individual public bodies are responsible for their own procurement activity and the Scottish Government have no responsibility for maintaining this information for all public contracts.

Information pertaining to Scottish Government contracts is held by the Scottish Government and is provided below in compliance with FOISA.

Background explanation to the information.

Public bodies are unable to mandate the payment of the 'real' Living Wage as part of a procurement process, for those working on the delivery of a contract. However the Scottish Government tackled the payment of the Living Wage in contracts through the publication of Statutory Guidance on 'Addressing Fair Work Practices, including the Living Wage, in Procurement'. This guidance goes further than any approach taken by any other UK government. This guidance introduced a requirement on public bodies to include a question on Fair Work, including payment of the Living Wage in relevant regulated procurement processes which commenced on or after 1 November 2015.

The information you have requested is provided below in 2 parts.

Part 1

a) how many contractors delivering public contracts in Scotland pay, as a minimum, the real living wage (as defined by the Living Wage Foundation) and

c) for this information to be broken down by sector, specifically including (i) social care, (ii) childcare and early years, (iii) hospitality and tourism, (iv) construction, and (v) any other services provided by arms-length external organisations.

We do not hold information about all public contracts. Of the information the Scottish Government holds about contractors paying the real Living Wage to workers engaged on the delivery of the contract, 161 contractors delivering contracts for the Scottish Government committed to pay the 'real' Living Wage to those workers. This broken down by category is as follows:

Breakdown of contractors by category*
* please note that some contractors are engaged across more than one category of contract.
Corporate and professional services	36
Employability services	8
Energy	6
Facilities and estates services	19
ICT networks, products and services	50
Rural and environmental services	7
Various contracts for Scottish Government teams	23
Social research	19
Social security services	4

Part 2

b) what percentage this is of total public contracts

We do not hold information about all public contracts. We hold information on the payment of the 'real' Living Wage for those workers engaged on the delivery of the contract, in relation to 174 Scottish Government contracts. 93% of these are with contractors who committed to pay the 'real' Living Wage and 7% of these are with contractors who did not make this commitment, in respect of those working on the contract. While we are pleased with this figure, we will continue to strive towards 100%.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses