The government has missed the perfect opportunity to encourage private companies to pay their staff the living wage by not taking full advantage of new European guidelines that come into force today (Thursday) says UNISON.
New regulations on public procurement that set out the criteria which firms bidding for government, council and health contracts need to meet in order to be considered are currently being introduced by governments across Europe.
But rather than use the full scope of the regulations to encourage better practice amongst private firms who wish to bid for public contracts, the UK government has made cost the only factor that companies need to consider, says UNISON.
If the government was introducing the regulations in the way that they were intended, they could make payment of the living wage, apprenticeships and training opportunities all factors that bidding firms would need to meet.
The new rules don’t legally have to be in place until next April, so there is no need for ministers to be rushing them onto the statute book, says UNISON.
Commenting on the regulations, UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis said: “Every year billions of pounds of contracts from central government, local authorities and the NHS are up for grabs. But at the moment the only thing that firms who want to win public work need to do is make sure their bid is the cheapest.
“These new European regulations give individual governments much greater flexibility on the importance they can place on certain factors. By doing so they can ensure that any private company running a publicly funded service is a good employer, whose workers enjoy decent pay, safe working conditions and the opportunity to enhance their career prospects.
“Earlier this year, the Prime Minister said that he wanted to see firms using increased company profits to pay their staff the living wage. Here was the perfect pre-election opportunity for David Cameron to ensure that Britain gets a pay rise by increasing the number of workers earning at least £7.85 an hour.
“If the government was serious about giving a financial boost to UK families, ministers could also have used these new European rules to stop private care companies from paying illegal wages by failing to pay their home care workers for their travel time and from employing them all on zero-hours contracts.”