Morning Briefing: Council staff to get wage rises AROUND 2000 delighted council workers are to see their wages rise by more than £1000 a year due to a fair pay standard being adopted. The Edinburgh City Council employees will benefit from the introduction of the Living Wage in January. The proposal will see pay set at £7.50 an hour, 5p above the recommended rate and significantly higher than the national minimum wage of £6.19. It will mean a full-time cook, cleaner or carer on £6.46 with a pension, for example, will increase take-home pay by around £105 per month, or £1270 per annum. Workers in the same role without a pension will increase take-home pay by around £110 per month. or £1328 per annum. Those on the minimum £6.19 would see even larger increases. A large proportion of those affected are women, which unions have welcomed following the announcement yesterday. A final decision will be made by city councillors next month and staff can expect to see the increases from January. The rise is expected to cost taxpayers £1.4 million, but council leaders have said the amount would be covered by existing funds and would have a significant impact on the lives of employees. A SCOTLAND-WIDE strike by lawyers was looming closer today after Glasgow solicitors followed the lead of their Edinburgh counterparts in voting for industrial action. Members of the Glasgow Bar Association voted unanimously for action in protest at Scottish Government plans to change the legal aid system after colleagues in the Capital made the same decision. More associations are now expected to follow suit. Concern centres on proposals that would mean people with a disposal income of £68 a week or more would pay a financial contribution towards criminal legal aid. The Scottish Government says it believes the measure could save £3.9 million a year from the legal aid budget. Solicitors argue that the change, which puts the burden on them to collect the money, may leave them out of pocket if clients do not pay. AEGON UK chief executive Adrian Grace said he has sorted out the "mess" the life and pensions company was in as it posted a 150 per cent rise in third quarter underlying pre-tax profit to £20 million. But despite the upbeat figures he refused to rule out further job cuts. Mr Grice has overseen a major overhaul of Aegon UK since joining, initially as business development director in 2009 before a series of promotions took him to the top job, Over the period, staff numbers have been slashed from 4500 to 2500, of whom 1900 work in its Edinburgh headquarters. It has also focused its activities on the workplace savings and "at retirement" markets and dropped the Scottish Equitable monicker. Mr Grace, said: "It is not often that you take a 170 year-old brand, you find it in a bit of a mess and you turn it around like this."