Susan Smith says the charity sector must avoid the false dichotomy between a decent wage and their charitable purpose

There will be people in the charity sector feeling smug about the news that charity workers are less likely to be paid the living wage than everyone else.

It provides ammunition in the fight against a seemingly growing section of society that is convinced charities are wasting public and donor money paying exorbitant staff salaries.

It’s not true; more than 36,000 people employed by Scottish charities aren’t paid as much as the Living Wage Foundation has carefully calculated they need to live on this country. Scotland also pays its charities workers even less than the rest of the UK.

People earning less than the living wage, most often women working in low-skilled jobs, will be struggling to pay their bills. If they have kids, they will be struggling to provide them with a healthy diet. They will be arriving at work stressed and may struggle to put that aside to focus on doing a good job.

Too often we hear of managers using their charitable status as an excuse for not offering cost of living rises or even making cuts to terms and conditions. Supporting another homeless person can of course feel more pressing, but paying a wage that doesn’t provide a decent quality of life is not putting service users first and it’s not making the best use of donor money.

The third sector has to stop being ashamed about paying its staff, whether that’s the living wage for social care staff or a competitive chief executive salary reflecting the importance of the work the organisation does.

Scotland’s third sector is one of the best in the world and it makes people’s lives better on a daily basis. That’s something to be smug about. Its shame is that isn’t showing a commensurate respect for its staff.