A PROMISE to pay all care workers the living wage from today has been branded a "sham" after it emerged that it will not apply to those at work throughout the night.

The SNP manifesto promised to "extend payment of the living wage... ensuring that all social care workers receive the living wage by October 2016". Nicola Sturgeon said extra cash had been made available to councils to allow them to meet the pledge.

However, authorities have struggled to meet the commitment and a letter, sent out only this week by a senior Scottish Government official, made clear that it did not expect staff working 'sleepover' shifts to be paid the £8.25-per-hour rate.

Instead, employers were told that they could pay the workers on sleepovers, often necessary to care for the most vulnerable in society, the legal minimum set by the UK Government.

It was also acknowledged that some other care workers on routine shifts will have to be handed backpayments as their raises have not been arranged in time.

Geoff Huggins, the Government's director of health and social care integration, told regional bosses: "A number of you have sought further clarification on the position with sleepovers. I therefore wish to confirm our expectations as part of the 2016/17 Living Wage commitment that sleepover hours must be paid at a rate that is compliant with HMRC requirements.

"This is a transitionary position and our ambition remains that beyond this we will move to a position where all hours, including sleepover hours, are paid at the rate of the real living wage, however, we recognise that it may take time for partnerships and providers to adjust to this."

Unison, which has campaigned for the introduction of the policy, said the Scottish Government had underestimated the complexity of implementation, particularly as many councils had outsourced care services to external providers.

Dave Watson, Unison Scotland's head of policy and public affairs, said: "The policy is the right one. The problem is they've made this grand statement and implementation has been a real mess.

"It's been a lot more challenging than I think the Scottish Government anticipated. With sleepovers, we want everybody to be paid the living wage but we accept it does require a bit more work.

"Many workers will not see this increase in their pay packet today and Unison will continue to press government and councils to deliver on this promise."

Colin Smyth, Labour's social care spokesman, said the SNP pledge of a living wage to care workers have been "build on sand".

He added: "A year ago the Tories were rightly criticised for announcing a so called living wage that only applied to over 25s - now the Nationalists have introduced a living wage for care workers that doesn't apply to all care workers. What a sham.

"The SNP government faces a choice - it can continue to spin this sham living wage as the real deal, or work with Labour to fund it properly."

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “We believe that our care workers deserve a fair day’s pay for the valuable job that they do – that’s why we made the ambitious commitment that all adult care workers in Scotland will be eligible for the real Living Wage from 1st October.  This will benefit up to 40,000 people, mainly women.

“This year we’re investing £250 million from the NHS to protect and grow our social care services, including paying adult care workers the real Living Wage. This is on top of the £500 million we’re already investing over three years to support the integration of health and social care.

“We recognise the complexities of implementation and in mid-September we wrote to commissioners to identify any local issues, so further support could be provided where needed. The issue of sleepovers was raised with the Scottish Government and COSLA by providers and we listened – that is why we agreed that sleep-in hours should be compliant with HMRC regulations for a transitional period to allow for more effective and constructive reform to take place.

“In offering this flexibility our central concern was to maintain continuity of care for vulnerable people.”