Introduction

Living wage campaigns command substantial popular support, yet austerity is proving to be a poor bedfellow to their implementation. Recognising that the articulation of austerity is bound by the context of political spaces, governmental formations and constitutional forms in which these policies, programmes and political projects unfold (Clarke, 2017), this chapter seeks to tease out these contingencies of place in the impact of the austerity agenda. To do so, it explores the progressive policy to introduce a living wage to the social care workforce in Scotland.

As a strategy to improve workers’ conditions, a living wage endeavours to secure better-than-minimum wages to address the social and economic consequences of low pay. At a time when low-wage earners are experiencing cuts in public services, stagnant real-wage growth and precarious work at the same time as declining union strength, a living wage protects the workforce that is most exposed to market forces as a result of outsourcing and restructuring (McBride and Muirhead, 2016; Parker et al, 2016; Prowse and Fells, 2016). Outsourced social care involves difficult working conditions across multiple sites, with a largely female workforce at the bottom of the wage distribution in a sector plagued by a shortage of workers and high turnover (Howes, 2005). In 2016 the Scottish Government introduced the Scottish Living Wage (SLW) for front-line workers in adult social care in an effort to address cost and quality tensions in the market as well as recruitment and retention difficulties (Cunningham et al, 2018). Intended to relieve the social care sector from a dysfunctional market, the SLW and its implementation present an opportunity to examine the challenges and consequences arising at the intersection of a positive policy initiative and austerity measures.

After briefly outlining the literature on minimum and living wages and on austerity in social care, this chapter presents findings on local authorities’ and providers’ experiences with SLW implementation. Drawing on interviews with voluntary and private social care providers across Scotland, representatives of lead employer bodies, union officials, commissioning authorities and civil servants, the findings suggest that the re-regulation of pay has, paradoxically, prompted greater insecurity in market relations in social care (Cunningham et al, 2018).