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The closure of the Low Pay Unit due to a cut in funding brings to an end nearly 30 years of campaigning on behalf of low-paid workers. The unit has been a staunch advocate of poorly paid workers in the care sector, among others, and many will lament its demise.

There are fears that the unit may have been allowed to go to the wall because the government itself has made poverty and social exclusion a high priority with the creation of the Social Exclusion Unit and new benefits to support the low paid including working families tax credit. The advent of the minimum wage may also have contributed to a sense of complacency. Grant-making trusts have shifted their emphasis away from campaigning work toward specific projects. This approach tends to favour client-facing activities over the policy and research focus that characterises the unit.

Jack Dromey, national organiser at the Transport and General Workers Union, who worked for the unit in the 1970s, described its closure as a "tragedy". "There remains in Britain the scandal of low pay for millions of workers," he said. 

Bill Badham, development officer, National Youth Agency
"Joseph Rowntree used to get loads of money for his soup kitchen, but the good people of York were less happy when he 'enquired into the extent and causes of poverty'. Now we have government committees to eradicate poverty in a generation, in part thanks to the Low Pay Unit 'searching out the underlying causes' as Rowntree would say. But a minimum wage which is now not much more than £4 an hour hardly heralds the abolition of poverty. It doesn't even apply to the whole workforce."

Julia Ross, executive director for health and social care, London Borough of Barking and Dagenham
"It's hard to understand why the job of a senior executive in the public sector is worth around £100,000 and far more in the private sector. This is alongside basic care workers' pay of £10,000. I have no doubt it could be a lot worse without the efforts of the Low Pay Unit. However, pay is consistently still very poor and so we have to question the values of a society that likes to think it cares but accepts this sorry state where the value of care is counted in this way."

Felicity Collier, chief executive, Baaf Adoption and Fostering
"It is always difficult to fund-raise for charities which are not seen to provide a direct service but the Low Pay Unit has a distinct umbrella role in informing and co-ordinating initiatives across the country. Campaigning is a legitimate charitable activity. There is surely a strong case for a government committed to social inclusion to provide core funding to ensure the unit can continue. Indeed, it would be seen as a sign of strength."

Bob Hudson, principal research fellow, Nuffield Institute for Health, University of Leeds
"Only the more senior of Community Care's readers will remember the time when the Low Pay Unit was not around to offer expert advice and analysis. It seems bizarre that such an established and respected organisation should be going to the wall for the sake of £150,000. The fact that we have a national minimum wage does not mean that there is no ongoing problem with low pay, as many working in social care will testify."

Martin Green, chief executive, Counsel and Care for the Elderly
"The closure of the Low Pay Unit is particularly sad for the many people who work in the care sector and who survive on very low pay. The demise of this unit highlights the increasing gap that exists between the rhetoric of ending social exclusion and poverty and the reality of what is going on to achieve these aims. For many years the Low Pay Unit has highlighted and researched the issues of low pay and without the unit there will be less monitoring of the position and more employed people could slip into being paid subsistence incomes."