Local government ‘has power’ to tackle inequality

Ahead of the local and mayoral elections, the High Pay Centre is reminding councils and metro mayors that they have a real role to play in confronting inequality.

The think tank has released a discussion paper which argues that, while most policy on pay and employment rights is set by central government and national regulators, subnational government can still empower workers, secure fairer pay and promote responsible business.

After detailing the extent of inequality in the UK – where the average FTSE 100 CEO earns 119 times as much as the typical UK full-time worker – the paper recommends improvements which can be made at local government levels. These include:

• committing to paying a real living wage to all employees and outsourced workers;

• developing an employment charter setting out standards which local businesses can sign up to, and embedding these into procurement policies; and

• publishing pay bands showing how the local and regional authorities distribute their total spend on pay between high and low earners, based on the pay ratio disclosures mandated for major listed private companies.

https://highpaycentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/discussion-paper-document.pdf