STAFF paid the lowest amounts by Bolton Council will now earn more than the Living Wage.

As part of a new council initiative, all staff members will get a minimum of £7.88 per hour, which is above the £7.85 figure that is recommended by the Living Wage Foundation for employers outside London.

The minimum wage is £6.50 for adults and means the council's lowest paid staff — including cleaners and kitchen workers — will now earn at least £1.38 more.

Union chiefs have welcomed the move but have asked the council to go further and seek official accreditation as a Living Wage Employer.

The council began to implement plans to remove the bottom two pay points for what are known as Grade 1 staff last year.

The plans have now been finalised meaning that around 120 employed staff, along with casual and agency workers will now benefit from the changes.

The council will also recommend that all schools take up the change but it cannot impose any changes on schools outside local authority control.

After signing off on the plans, authority chiefs are seeking a collective agreement with the relevant Trade Unions on the changes.

This process could take several months but once agreed the pay changes will be backdated to April of this year.

Bolton Council leader Cliff Morris said it was important that the lowest paid workers “do not get left behind.”

He said: “We started this process last year and this was a case of finishing off the job that we started.

“It is just about the lowest paid people, we felt that if we didn’t act then there was a risk that they would be left behind.

“We looked at the situation and felt that we had sufficient funds to put the pay of these people up and do away with that lowest grade of pay.”

The council received a joint statement from the UNISON and GMB unions, stating that while an increase to the rate of pay would be welcomed, the current proposals do not go far enough.

A spokesman said: “We would like to ask that the council re-considers its position and applies for accreditation to become a Living Wage Employer.

“This is a public binding commitment. It is a simple way of embedding the Living Wage into organisational structures which guarantees that low paid staff benefit long term.”

Cllr Morris responded, stating: “The Living Wage figure rises all the time and we will have to check on the budget in the future to make sure we can raise it to that level.

“We are looking after our own and while we encourage others to be Living Wage employers we can’t guarantee that year on year because we don’t know what kind of budget savings we are going to have to make.”