Tag: Fair Work Convention

Fair Work Convention: Renewed Vision

Fair Work Convention unveils Renewed Vision for a fairer, more inclusive Scotland

The Fair Work Convention has shared its renewed vision for building a fairer, more inclusive Scotland.

This refreshed direction champions workplaces where everyone has the opportunity to thrive, with fairness and respect at the heart of Scotland’s economy.

Discover what this means for workers, employers, and Scotland’s future:

The Fair Work Convention has today announced a renewed vision for Scotland’s workplaces, reaffirming its commitment to ensuring that every worker in Scotland benefits from the five dimensions of fair work; opportunity, security, respect, fulfilment, and effective voice.

Scotland stands at a defining moment in its fair work journey. Over the past decade, significant progress has been made, like reducing gender economic inactivity gaps, reducing workplace injuries and tackling low pay. Yet the work is far from complete. More needs to be done to enhance fair work across Scotland’s economy.

Building on its longstanding role as an independent advisory body, the Fair Work Convention aims to position Scotland as a global leader in fair work, with a particular focus on driving measurable improvements for workers, employers, and wider society.

Fair Work Dimensions
Five Pillars of Fair Work

The renewed vision sets out five pillars of Fair Work:

  • Security: Ensuring stable employment with predictable hours and clear opportunities for career progression.
  • Respect: Promoting safe, healthy, and supportive working environments that foster wellbeing and ensure flexibility that works for everyone.
  • Fulfilment: Encouraging investment in skills for both the present and the future, and supporting work that offers autonomy, purpose, and opportunities to shape decisions.
  • Opportunity: Championing inclusive employment practices that ensure all of Scotland’s people can access fair work.
  • Effective Voice: Securing genuine channels for workers to be heard at every level, with a particular emphasis on strong collective bargaining structures and workplace access for trade unions.

As part of this renewed direction, the Convention will strengthen its role in providing independent scrutiny, guidance, and monitoring, supporting partners across Scotland to translate fair work principles into tangible, real‑world progress.

Fair Work Convention Co-Chair Professor Patricia Findlay said: “We know that Scotland faces ongoing economic challenges that demand resilience, adaptability and innovation.  Fair work is not just a moral imperative; it is an economic necessity.

“We want Scotland to be recognised internationally as a nation where fair work is at the heart of our economic success,”

Fair Work Convention Co-Chair Chris Westcott added: “This renewed vision reinforces our commitment to ensuring that all workers, regardless of sector, background or job role experience fair and meaningful work.

“Now is the time to reaffirm our commitment to fair work and its crucial role in delivering the type of Scotland we want and need.”

Business Minister Richard Lochhead said: “The Scottish Government remains committed to fair work and has awarded £6 billion in public sector grants to organisations which follow Fair Work First criteria.

“It’s paying off. Scotland is the best performing of all four UK countries with the highest proportion of employees aged 18 or over – 88.7% – being paid the real Living Wage or more.

“This renewed direction from the Fair Work Convention helps strengthen our shared ambition to ensure workplaces across Scotland deliver security, opportunity, respect and a meaningful voice for every worker. This is central to building a stronger, more inclusive and more resilient economy for the future.”

The Fair Work Convention will continue to engage closely with workers, employers, trade unions, and policymakers as it delivers on the vision and supports Scotland’s journey towards becoming a world-leading Fair Work Nation.

A leading Fair Work Nation? Significant progress made, but still a way to go

Scotland has made significant progress towards its goal of becoming a leading Fair Work Nation, according to the latest research from the Fair Work Convention.

The new report, which benchmarks Scotland’s performance against leading European nations, highlights both achievements and ongoing challenges for Scotland as it approaches its 2025 ambition.

Measuring Scotland's Performance as a Leading Fair Work Nation International Fair Work Nation Framework Progress Report
Measuring Scotland’s Performance as a Leading Fair Work Nation

This report is not the final verdict on whether Scotland is a leading Fair Work Nation due to the lag in the publication of economic data. But the findings suggest that Scotland won’t be a leading Fair Work Nation by 2025.

Despite this, the report shows that since 2016, Scotland has made measurable progress on fair work. It has improved on 11 of the 14 indicators, with particularly positive performance in key areas like reducing gender economic inactivity gaps, reducing workplace injuries and tackling low pay.

When comparing Scotland’s performance with other leading European nations, Scotland performs particularly well on permanent employment and is improving on other security dimensions of fair work like underemployment and involuntary part-time work.

Challenges remain, particularly on unemployment for young people where Scotland’s performance is dropping, on the disability employment gap where more progress is needed to meet the Scottish Government’s target and on collective bargaining where Scotland lags significantly behind the leading nations.

Beyond the data, the report recognises the significant work undertaken by the Scottish Government and the Fair Work Convention to create the concept of Fair Work and to embed it firmly within economic policy.

The Government’s Fair Work First approach means that fair work conditionality has been applied to more than £6 billion of public funding. The Convention’s sectoral inquiries have provided a clear way forward on deeply ingrained fair work issues in sectors like hospitality, construction and social care.

Looking ahead, the report calls for a renewed commitment and a range of further action, particularly on collective bargaining as a key measure and a route to improving all dimensions of fair work.

Fair Work Convention Co-Chairs Professor Patricia Findlay and Chris Westcott said: “Becoming a world leading Fair Work Nation was always a stretching and aspirational target, deliberately chosen to challenge ourselves as a nation. There are many obstacles to its delivery. But by aiming high, fair work is now embedded firmly in policy and in much practice in Scotland.

“We remain ambitious and committed to supporting the delivery of fair work. Transformative progress that benefits workers, businesses and our economy is achievable. New legislation on worker rights from Westminster will help underpin aspects of fair work, allowing us to re-focus Scotland’s aspirations for leading fair work practice.”

Read the full Measuring Scotland’s Performance as a Leading Fair Work Nation report here

Companies bidding to win Scottish Government contracts must pay the real Living Wage

Companies bidding to win Scottish Government contracts will have to pay the real Living Wage, ministers have announced.

This will ensure public sector contracts tackle in work poverty and promote fair work practices across the public, private and third sector where there is a risk of low pay.

The real Living Wage has been consistently higher than the UK National Living Wage and helps create an inclusive and fair economy for all.

Business Minister Ivan McKee said: “We want to use every opportunity possible to promote fair work and ensure people are paid at least the real Living Wage. By using procurement powers to ensure bidders pay the real Living Wage, the Scottish Government is leading by example to help influence employment practices and embed fair work principles.

“We will continue to engage with relevant sectors to encourage others to adopt this change across the public, private and third sector. We are firmly focused on creating the right economic conditions and fair work practices to drive a greener, fairer and more sustainable economy.”

Fair Work Minister Richard Lochhead said: “As outlined in our Programme for Government, a range of measures are being taken forward to embed Fair Work First across the economy. 

“The Scottish Government recognises pay as a clear way that an employer can demonstrate a commitment to their workforce, helping tackle in-work poverty alongside wider Fair Work First criteria.

“We will also introduce further changes to strengthen criteria for Scottish Government grants from next summer, subject to limits on devolved competence, as part of the Cooperation Agreement with the Scottish Green Party.

“The number of accredited living wage employers has increased from 14 in 2014 to just over 2,300 in 2021 and we would encourage more businesses to sign up to help ensure more people see their pay uplifted to at least the real Living Wage. We encourage organisations, regardless of size, sector or location, to adopt our progressive fair work approach which will help ensure all staff receive a fair day’s pay for the work they do.”

The Fair Work Convention Co Chairs Professor Patricia Findlay and Grahame Smith welcome the announcement from the Scottish Government on introducing a requirement to pay the real Living Wage to public contracts.

Commenting on the announcement, Professor Patricia Findlay said: “The Fair Work Convention welcomes today’s announcement from the Scottish Government. Low pay is one of the key drivers of in-work poverty.

“All too often we find that disabled workers, BME workers, young workers and women in particular face precarious and low paid work, so addressing very low pay in public contracts can begin to support better outcomes for these and other workers.

“Pay is a crucial element of fair work, and for too long the obstacles to workers’ challenging and improving low pay in certain occupations and sectors have been considerable.  Given this, government action to help address low pay is necessary to deliver fair work as well as to deliver on equality and anti-poverty priorities.

Grahame Smith added: I’m delighted that the Scottish Government has accepted the Convention’s view that there is no legal impediment to making the payment of the real living wage a requirement of those in receipt of public contracts.

“While this decision is a significant step forward and will make a real difference for thousands of low paid workers, we will be exploring urgently how conditionality can be extended to all dimensions of fair work, particularly requirements around collective bargaining, union recognition and the adoption of all terms and conditions negotiated nationally between employers and unions.”

A fairer deal for Scotland’s workers

Tackling low pay and zero hours contracts: new guidance will promote fair work

workers

The Scottish Government will today formalise its commitment to making Scotland a fairer place to work with new statutory guidance for public sector procurement. The move has been welcomed by the STUC.

The document represents the first time any administration has gone as far, and ensures that public sector procurements can take account of the fact that employers whose staff are treated fairly are likely to deliver higher quality services.

Those bidding for public contracts will now be expected to adopt fair work practices, which may include –

  • paying the Living Wage
  • no unnecessary use of zero hours contracts
  • giving workers an active voice in the workplace

The Scottish Government is prevented by EU procurement law from making the Living Wage mandatory in contract agreements, but the new statutory guidance means that companies who want to secure business with public bodies are now obliged to sign up to these fair work conditions for anyone working on the contracts.

Infrastructure Secretary Keith Brown will launch the new guidance in his speech to the Procurex national procurement conference in Glasgow this morning.

He said: “The commitment to making Scotland a fairer place to work is a key tenet of this government, and our new statutory guidance for public sector procurements sees us nail our colours to the mast.

“Our model of procurement, putting the social, economic and environmental aspects of sustainability at the heart of all we do, remains the foundation of our approach.

“Employers must now recognise that they cannot adopt exploitative practices in relation to their workers and expect to be rewarded with lucrative contracts in the public sector.

“If you want to do business with the public sector in Scotland, you have to be a responsible employer and value your workers. You have to do your bit to make Scotland a fairer and more equal society.

“We will continue to do everything in our power to promote that ethos.”

The news has been welcomed by those representing workers throughout Scotland.

Grahame Smith, General Secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) said: “The STUC welcomes the Statutory Guidance on Fair Work Practices being introduced by the Scottish Government, a move that once again highlights the different approach taken by the Scottish Government in tackling poor employment practices and low pay in the Scottish economy.

“The Scottish Government has taken the lead in driving forward the real Living Wage as have local authorities and we believe it is right that companies wishing to receive public contracts should demonstrate that they treat staff fairly by paying a living wage, recognise the benefits of trade unions and collective bargaining and treat their workers with the dignity and respect they deserve.

“The Fair Work Agenda and the approach taken by the Scottish Government to promoting positive industrial relations as being key to economic success is thankfully at odds with attacks on trade unions at UK level and these statutory guidelines provide public bodies the opportunity to ensure contractors understand what is expected from them, as part of the public procurement process, and their role in delivering fair work and good terms and conditions for Scottish workers.”

The Fair Work Convention was set up last year to ensure there are more good quality, well-paid jobs at all levels throughout the public, private and third sectors.

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Fair Work Convention Co-Chair Anne Douglas (above) said: “The Fair Work Convention believes it is vital that work which provides individuals with opportunity, fulfilment, security, respect and effective voice and balances the rights and responsibilities of employers and employees. In doing this we can generate real benefits for individuals, organisations and for society more widely.

“It is therefore important that the Scottish Government uses all its levers to promote fair working practices and the Convention welcomes these being reflected in statutory guidance.

Linda Urquhart, the Convention’s other Co-Chair, continued: “The Fair Work Convention is currently engaging across Scotland, with business, employees, union, third and public sectors as well as society more generally to help evidence fair work and the basis from which the Fair Work Framework for Scotland will be created.

“Following the publication of their Framework in March the Fair Work Convention will welcome an opportunity to work with the Scottish Government to further this approach.”