How Edinburgh avoided a crisis on equal pay - Donald Anderson

Traditionally female workers were paid less. That discrimination was addressed by the Equal Pay Act in 1975, but it was 1999 before councils and unions signed an agreement to achieve equal pay.

In Glasgow the long delay in reaching a deal thereafter simply increased the costs of the deal, leaving a long term and deeply damaging legacy for the council and the city.

Edinburgh faced the same huge potential bill to cover back-dated pay and that could have seriously impacted council services or pushed up council tax bills or both.

Having initially looked at selling Edinburgh Park – sadly I was the only one in the council who thought that was a good idea – the council decided not to.

Deeply disappointed at not getting my way, Andrew Holmes, then Director of City Development met me and suggested that the council might look at selling the Haymarket Goods Yard site as an alternative to Edinburgh Park. I knew a good thing when I saw it and leapt at the chance.

Long story short the sale was agreed by the council and despite being valued at £14million, the sale netted £41.5million. The temptation was obviously for the council to go on a spending spree, but instead every single party on the council signed up to keeping the cash aside to help meet the cost of equal pay.

Despite a change in administration, years of financial challenges, all parties and officers of the council worked together until there was a final settlement in 2015 at a cost of £87.5million.

That settlement was facilitated in large part by the sale of the Morrison Street Goods Yard.

Council staff and politicians don’t often get praise, but on equal pay the behaviour of everyone was exemplary. Women deserved equal pay and Edinburgh’s council worked hard to make that happen in a way that didn’t impact on services or drive-up council tax bills. True story.