A health and social care charity has increased pay for its 1,800 support workers as part of a £6.5m investment.

Alternative Futures Group provides support for people with learning disabilities and mental-health conditions.

The charity, which supports about 900 people across north-west England, has committed £5.9m to improve pay for its frontline workers in Merseyside, Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Lancashire, increasing their wage to an equivalent of £12.60 an hour, matching the Real Living Wage.

In October the government announced that the new National Living Wage rate of £12.21 would apply from 1 April.

The Living Wage Foundation published the updated RLW rate for the UK, which has increased by 5 per cent from £12.00 to £12.60.

Alternative Futures Group also committed a further £600,000 to ensure a cost-of-living rise for colleagues in other roles, the charity said.

Last year, the charity increased pay for all social care workers from £11 an hour to £12 an hour, a 9 per cent rise, compared with this year’s 5 per cent increase to £12.60 an hour.

The charity said this was its largest investment yet and followed three successive years of real-terms pay rises.

Ian Pritchard, chief executive of AFG, said: “It is going to be incredibly tough this year given the economic outlook, increased costs associated with the Employment Rights Bill and continued local authority budget cuts.”

Kirsty Murphy, chief people officer at AFG, said: “Over the past three years, AFG has invested £13.5m to improve pay for our frontline colleagues and £2.8m to colleagues in other roles.

“We value our hard-working colleagues and recognise they are critical to the success of the organisation and the sector.”