Iain Gray will also promise to provide many more apprenticeships for school leavers Labour leader Iain Gray will promise to take a 5% pay cut if he is chosen to be Scotland’s new First Minister.
He will make the pledge at the Scottish Labour Conference in Oban on Saturday, and will vow to cut his ministers pay by a similar amount if elected.
Current SNP First Minister Alex Salmond earns around £140,000 a year.
Mr Gray will tell his party he wants to reduce the pay of senior civil servants, but will assure members: “I want to lead from the front.”
He has also indicated that other public sector workers in Scotland are unlikely to see pay increases for up to three years.
But Labour are committed to introducing a living wage of just over £7 an hour for the lowest paid.
Voters in Scotland will go to the polls next May to elect a new Holyrood administration.
The current SNP government has frozen salaries for ministers, but Mr Gray will promise to go further.
“We want to see a reduction in pay at the highest level in the public sector and I want to lead from the front,” he will say.
“That is why I will take a 5% cut and I commit my ministerial team to do likewise. A Scottish Labour government must lead by example.”
Mr Gray will also tell Labour members that his election manifesto will include a commitment to provide an apprenticeship place for every qualified school leaver who wants one.
While conceding the move “will be hard and not happen overnight”, he will insist: “We will do what is hard because it is right.”
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