Edinburgh's Living Wage

I'm absolutely delighted that our Capital Coalition has announced that we are to pay Council workers the Living Wage, at £7.50 / hour from the beginning of 2013. There's more detail on the Edinburgh Labour web-site and Andrew Burns's Really Bad Blog but suffice to say it's great news that we will be able to fulfil one of our most important manifesto commitments so early. This won't make poor people rich of course, but then again it won't make poor people poorer as the ConDem Welfare Reform changes will, but it does bring some element of social justice and fairness to some of the poorest paid workers in the city. Having been responsible for constructing the Labour Group budget in our last two years of opposition, which prominently featured the Living Wage (only to have it rather arrogantly dismissed) I'm especially (but quietly), chuffed to bits.