Scottish care workers have been receiving the Living Wage of £8.45 per hour since October 2016 and will now receive the same rate for all ‘sleepover hours worked. This will make a big difference to around 40 000 workers. Most are women.
https://news.gov.scot/news/pay-boost-for-carers
In England, after a Unison-led employment appeal tribunal, workers must be paid the National Minimum Wage of £7.50 per hour instead of the fixed rate of only £29.05 or £4.60 per hour for a whole night caring for two vulnerable adults.
http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2017/07/20/care-worker-pay-quick-guide-sleep-shifts-row/
Just another small example, from many, that Scotland is just a wee bit different?
Scotland takes nearly 26% of Syrian refugees settled in UK with only 8% of the UK population
Talking-up Scotland 
Good news
I know a care worker who said sleepovers were ending. Heard about a month ago . . . Will check it out!
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Thanks
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This increase will probably be self financing as the money will be spent creating a small multiplier.
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Tell me more?
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The “Multiplier” is a reference to the” Keynesian Multiplier ” going back to President Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930 s. It was argued that government spending on infrastructure etc. introduced spending in the economy and by a knock on effect that increased at a calculable rate.
The reason I mentioned it was because it was fresh in my mind from a comment by Richard Murphy this week on National Health spending ( or lack of it ) in England . He said that a multiplier of between one and four could be applied to each £1 spent by government on the National Health Service!!!
I understand from elsewhere that the least beneficial spending any government can undertake is with the arms industry as the the money spent to job creation ratio is very poor.
My background is engineering so I am a bit out of my depth here but Professor Richard Murphy’ blog is very readable. He has done some sterling work on rubbishing GERS. I reallly liked his description of GERS as C R A P. Complete Rubbish AProximations.
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Richard Murphy ‘s shared post can be found here.
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2017/10/16/can-we-afford-the-nhs/.
It is well worth a read as it is argues that the return on investment is substantial.
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Thanks for clarifying that. So paying the Living Wage makes more economic sense than paying the National Minimum Wage?
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Brilliant, thanks. I’ve shared it everywhere I can
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The care worker I referred to above is on a Caribbean Cruise, IMHO she has earned it, and must have been saving up for it for a long time!
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Hi John – totally off topic but I thought this juxtaposition of snippets from beeb Jockland website ‘Scottish Business’ page yesterday was worth highlighting. Both the snippets below are from articles that were carried virtually next door to each other at precisely the same time – One article refers to UK retail sales stats – the other refers to Scottish retail sales stats – (see below):
UK retail sales in sharp fall in September, ONS says
Retail sales suffered an unexpectedly sharp fall of 0.8% in September, reversing a jump in August, according to the Office for National Statistics.
It meant that third-quarter retail growth slowed to a year-on-year rate of 1.5%, its lowest since the second quarter of 2013.
Now for the Scottish info (below):
Scottish grocers report ‘bumper’ month
Scottish retailers saw overall sales rise last month as grocers enjoyed a “bumper” month, according to new figures.
Food sales rose year-on-year by 5%, while total non-food sales fell by 2%.
Overall sales for September were up by 1.1% – or 1.2% in real terms – according to the Scottish Retail Consortium-KPMG retail sales monitor.
Now – I don’t know about anybody else – but I would reckon any business/economics editor worth their salt might just have noticed those two rather differing headlines and thought about making a wee article comparing and contrasting? – but then I remembered just who the the beeb Jockland business editor is – nuff said.
Ta, ludo
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