Chamber and committees

The accreditation scheme is managed by Living Wage Scotland, where individual employers go through an application process to obtain accredited status. A directory for all currently accredited employers is available to view on the Living Wage Scotland website at the below page, and can be filtered by Local Authority:

https://scottishlivingwage.org/employer-directory/

Per the latest available Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings real Living Wage data from the Office for National Statistics, Scotland remains the best performing of all four UK countries with the highest proportion of employees (18+) paid the Real Living Wage or more (91.0%). Ahead of Wales 88.2%, England 87.5%, NI 85.4%, and the UK 87.8%. The data is also recorded by Scottish Industry Sector in table 5.4, and Local Authority area in table 5.7. The full data tables can be accessed and downloaded from the following web page.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/annual-survey-of-hours-and-earnings-2022/

Scotland has one of the lowest levels of low pay, insecure work and low paid insecure work across all UK regions, however with 17% of workers in Scotland classed as being in insecure work (which is deeply connected to low pay), we are not complacent. Although employment law is reserved to the UK Government, we are committed to mainstreaming Fair Work throughout Scotland. Our Fair Work Action Plan aims to use the levers that we have control over to ensure that all parts of the Scottish Government set out collectively what we can do to discourage the use of precarious contracts. Our Fair Work First criteria have been applied to over £4bn of public sector funding since 2019 – driving fair work practices across the labour market. For public sector grants awarded on or after 1 July 2023 we have introduced a requirement to pay at least the real Living Wage to all employees, and provide appropriate channels for effective voice, within the bounds of what we can do within devolved competence.

On 6 November 2023, the Scottish Government announced its accreditation as a Living Hours employer, the first government in the UK to do so. The Living Hours scheme recognises that in addition to payment of the real Living Wage, number and frequency of work hours are critical to tackling in-work poverty. Criteria to accredit also includes providing a contract reflecting accurate hours worked, a guaranteed minimum of 16 hours a week (unless the worker requests otherwise), and at least 4 weeks’ notice of shifts and guaranteed payment if shifts are cancelled within this period.

We established the Scottish Land Commission on 1 April 2017, after the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016 came into force. Its remit is to review the effectiveness and impact of our laws and policies relating to land, and to make recommendations to Scottish Ministers on future land reform.

As part of the development of their discussion paper, Legislative Proposals to address the impact of Scotland’s Concentration of Land Ownership, (published February 2021), and their ongoing work on land reform, the SLC has published a series of reports reviewing international experience of interventions in land ownership, to inform fresh thinking for Scotland. They may be found here: International Experience - Governance & Ownership - Our work - Scottish Land Commission .

The proposals put forward in our consultation on the Bill were based on the Commission's discussion paper, which in turn were(where relevant) informed by the findings and lessons of these reports.

The Scottish Government has developed guidance to ensure that Bills can operate effectively in the wider policy and regulatory framework into which they will be introduced. As part of the development of the Bill this may (where relevant) require formal impact assessments to be carried out. These are:

• Business and regulatory impact assessment (BRIA)
• Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment (CRWIA)
• Data Protection Impact Assessment
• Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA)
• Fairer Scotland Duty assessment
• Future proofing legislation
• Human rights in policy making
• Islands Communities Impact Assessment (ICIA)
• Strategic Environment Assessment (SEA)

Where appropriate, issues raised in relation to housing, jobs, food production and rural depopulation will be addressed through these formal impact assessments.

We set out in our consultation document, Land Reform in a Net Zero Nation , ( Land Reform in a Net Zero Nation - Scottish Government consultations - Citizen Space ), our proposals for measures to be included in the next Land Reform Bill, and sought views on their impact in the areas listed above. In addition to taking account of the responses to this, and other questions in the consultation, officials continue to engage with internal and external stakeholders with interests in housing, jobs, food production and rural depopulation.

The Scottish Government has no single metric for measuring the diversity of land ownership. Our approach is to examine the evidence of patterns of ownership structures in the context of the different concerns that may be raised, in relation to land ownership and control.

Diversity may be measured at national, regional or local scale, and/or may seek to assess the extent, value or type of land owned (or controlled) by public, private or third sector organisations respectively. Within the private sector, the extent/value/type of land owned can be linked to the number and/or types of owners (individuals, trusts, companies/shareholders, overseas investors, unlisted companies, pension funds, etc.) A company, trust or pension fund could be a single entity, but benefit a number of individuals.

The expansion of community ownership is a key priority for us and we monitor the progress made by the community ownership sector in terms of acquiring land and land assets, see Community Ownership in Scotland 2022 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Our position on the current picture with regard to diversity of land ownership in Scotland is set out in the second and third principles of our Land Rights and Responsibilities Statement:

2. There should be a more diverse pattern of land ownership and tenure, with more opportunities for citizens to own, lease and have access to land.

3. More local communities should have the opportunity to own, lease or use buildings and land which can contribute to their community's wellbeing and future development.

Finally, we set out in our consultation on the forthcoming Land Reform Bill, Land Reform in a Net Zero Nation , our commitment “to making reforms that will contribute to the diversification of ownership of land in Scotland.”

The total number of FTE staff (rounded to the nearest whole number) employed in the public sector, within the Peatland Action programme, to undertake peatland restoration work – as of November 2023 – is as follows:

• Monitoring compliance with Fair Work First principles, including the requirements to pay workers at least the real Living Wage and provide appropriate channels for effective voice, is the responsibility of individual grant managers across government and of relevant funders across the wider public sector, including through our Peatland ACTION programme. It takes place within existing grant assurance and monitoring processes, as with any other condition of grant, such as agreed outcomes.
• Peatland Action partners comply with these principles as part of their own procurement frameworks that govern the respective grant agreements. They do this through a range of measures like mandated self-declaration when applying for grants and the regular liaison with the contractors during the course of ensuing works including site visits.

• The Scottish Government funds five direct delivery partners on an annual basis, based on the government wide capital spending allocations as agreed by Cabinet. These five direct delivery partners are NatureScot, Forestry and Land Scotland, Cairngorms National Park Authority, Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority and Scottish Water.
• These delivery partners then sub-contract physical restoration works to organisations in the third sector and private sector contractor companies.
• Contracts for peatland restoration are issued on a composite unit cost basis. Therefore, labour costs – for example machine operator wages – are not itemised separately.
• As each individual project across delivery partner and geographic location can vary significantly, it is not possible to determine an average labour cost across or within the delivery partners.