The practice has been accredited after signing up the the Living Wage Foundation and will see everyone in its team earning at least £8.25 an hour regardless of role or age. Tony McDonough reports.

Birkenhead accountancy firm Woods Squared is the latest Merseyside employer to commit to paying its staff the Living Wage..

The practice has been accredited after signing up the the Living Wage Foundation and will see everyone in its team earning at least £8.25 an hour regardless of role or age.

This is significantly higher than the national minimum wage of £6.95 which came in October 2016 or £7.20 for over 25s which was introduced this past April.

Woods Squared director, Alan Woods, made the announcement just days after his firm scooped two awards at the annual AVN conference in Birmingham. AVN is an association representing owner-managed accountancy firms.

The business won the Excellence in Doing Good’ and ‘Excellence in Team Culture’ accolades.

It was also a finalist for the Firm of the Year award and Alan Woods was also recognised for excellent social presence within the AVN Facebook group.

On the Living Wage announcement, Mr Woods said: “We place a huge amount of importance on the happiness of our team.

“We firmly believe that the happier our team the better the service we’ll give to our clients and the more success we’ll enjoy as a business as a result.

“As such, joining the Living Wage movement was a logical move for us.”

The Living Wage is an hourly rate set independently and updated annually and is calculated according to the basic cost of living using the ‘Minimum Income Standard’ for the UK.

Decisions about what to include in this standard are set by the public – it is a social consensus about what people need to make ends meet.