SOME of the lowest-paid workers in Oxford are set to get a pay rise as the city’s living wage goes up to more than £10 for the first time.

It follows the announcement the ‘real living wage’, which is higher than the Government’s compulsory minimum pay rate and set by the Living Wage Foundation, has risen by 25p an hour to £9.

Oxford City Council’s own Oxford Living Wage will now increase from £9.69 to £10.02 in April to reflect the rise in the London Living Wage, which is now £10.55.

For someone working 37.5 hours a week that equals £643.50 extra a year.

The council said that 57 of its staff, including cleaners, will be directly affected by the increase, as well as hundreds of employees at voluntarily signed-up businesses such as Oxford Bus Company and Oxford University.

The council also expects all of its contractors who are paid more than £100,000 to follow the Oxford rate, which is more than £2-an-hour higher than the Government’s National Living Wage, which is £7.83 for over-25s.

Two of the council’s biggest contractors are Oxford Direct Services, which is owned by the city council but operates independently, and Fusion Lifestyle, which manages the city’s leisure centres. Both pay the higher wage but Fusion, which signed contracts with the authority before the rate was approved in 2009, is currently being paid the difference by the council to pass on to employees.

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Councillor Martyn Rush, living wage champion for the council, said that ‘Oxford needed a pay rise’, adding: “The Oxford Living Wage helps our employees afford to live with dignity. It also helps the council by improving staff motivation and retention.”

He said it was now important to put pressure on Oxford’s ‘anchor’ employers like Oxford University’s colleges to pay the rate.

Of the 44 colleges and private halls at the university, just Campion Hall and Blackfriars College currently pay the Oxford wage, with a further 14 paying the ‘real living wage’ and 28 neither.

There are currently 66 organisations in the city committed to at least the ‘real living wage’.

While the Oxford increase has been seen as positive, the city's Green Party leader Craig Simmons said committing to 95 per cent of the London rate did not go far enough.

He said: “Oxford is the least affordable city to live in the UK and there is not the choice of accommodation that you can get in London. Commuting costs are also greater and homelessness is higher proportionally than in London.

"If anything, we need a higher living wage than London, not lower.”

A recent study found Oxford renters paid on average four times as much as those in Swindon - with an average of 39.1 per cent of salaries spent on rent.