@elizcro Hi Liz - your answer from Gavin Barwell last night, as promised.

Barwell does indeed support the London Living Wage, is impressed that Boris has introduced it for GLA workers and contractors and would very much like to see the same done by Croydon Council. A councillor at the meeting stood up to clarify that the LLW *is* paid to Croydon Council employees but, in his words, 'we have no control over what our contractors pay their employees'. The main issue here seems to therefore be that a number of people want 'pay your employees the LLW' to be a conditional part of securing a contract with Croydon Council.

When I asked Gavin what he has been doing to help this happen, his answer was twofold and detailed. Firstly, he accepts the 'enormous financial pressure' that the Council is under, a lot of it stemming from the 'bad formula' for funding local government at present, which dates from the last Labour government and Barwell wishes to see changed. Briefly, the problem with the formula is that it's not suited to outer London boroughs - Barwell cited the stats that say 10/12 inner London councils charge less than a thousand in council tax while 18/20 outer London councils charge more than a thousand. Barwell believes it's 'all about a timescale' to secure a solution to this, and quoted Mike Fisher as saying that there are other solutions available - 'if Croydon had Lambeth's grant, it'd be cutting Council Tax by 96% rather than increasing it'.

Finally, I asked Gavin again, specifically, what he's been doing to rectify this 'bad formula' issue, which he clarified is what he sees as standing in the way of the Council being able to realistically limit its contracts to companies that pay LLW - these are, naturally, more expensive to hire. Barwell told me that, in the Commons, he's been 'lobbying extensively', most recently asking Eric Pickles what he was doing about this issue during Questions to the Local Government Secretary. He also plans to speak to Cameron personally on this issue, and feels he'll be able to make the case to him very well, as it's a question that effects 'virtually all public spending'. In terms of what he's doing to pressure the council, he said 'I meet with the leader of the Council and the Chief Exec regularly, and I have made these views [regarding support for the London Living Wage] known on multiple occasions'.

That's what Barwell said to me last night on the issue, I did say I was asking on behalf of a reader who was unable to attend the meeting, so he's aware that this wasn't just a journalist looking for a quote! Hope this is all to your satisfaction.

Reply · Report Post