Cardiff Council was awarded a prestigious prize for its commitment to the real Living Wage at last night's annual Living Wage Champion Awards in London.

The Living Places Champion Award was given to the authority for successfully driving the promotion of the real Living Wage, the independently-calculated hourly rate based on the cost of living which is currently £9 across the UK and £10.55 in London.

The Council started paying its entire workforce the Living Wage in 2012 and since gaining Living Wage accreditation in 2015, it has actively promoted the voluntary rate across Cardiff including  through its Living Wage Accreditation Support Scheme to encourage more SMEs to pay the Living Wage by covering their accreditation costs for three years.

The authority has played a key role in increasing the number of accredited employers in Cardiff from 20 in 2015 to 93 in 2019, which represents around 46% of the total number of accredited employers in Wales.

Cabinet Member for Finance, Modernisation and Performance, Cllr Chris Weaver, said: "We're hugely proud to be a Living Wage employer and to have been awarded this Living Places Champion Award.  In Cardiff, we are really committed to promoting the Living Wage because we recognise that our staff need to earn a wage that meets the costs and pressures they face in their everyday lives.

"Our ambition is to become a Living Wage City by the end of this year, only the UK's second after Dundee and the first UK capital city, and to achieve this we need more organisations across Cardiff to become accredited Living Wage employers.  We know that many organisations in Cardiff already pay their staff the real Living Wage, it would be great if they could support Cardiff and become accredited Living Wage employers.  The accreditation process is straight forward and support is available from Cynnal Cymru and the Living Wage Foundation.

"We're keen to influence businesses in the city to demonstrate these good employment practices within their own organisations and want to see the Living Wage become part of their DNA, in the same way as it's now embedded within our own Council practices and strategies."

The Council is also signed up to Welsh Government's Code of Practice: Ethical Practice in Supply Chains which involves encouraging suppliers to pay the real Living Wage and has amended its tender documentation to ask tenderers a range of questions on fair work practices including payment of the real Living Wage.

Katherine Chapman, Director of the Living Wage Foundation, said: "The last year has been particularly successful for the Living Wage Foundation as we've seen through the 5,000th Living Wage Accreditation. Our awards are an opportunity to recognise the fantastic businesses who continue to recognise the importance of a wage that truly covers the cost of living, and the value this provides for workers and their families, as well as businesses."

To find out more about the Council's Living Wage Accreditation Support Scheme, visit

https://www.cardiff.gov.uk/ENG/Your-Council/Strategies-plans-and-policies/Living-Wage/Pages/default.aspx