With Scotland seeing 15 per cent restaurant service charges, it's time to stop outdated tipping – Stephen Jardine

Restaurant staff should be given proper rates of pay and not have to rely on customer tips

When Rod Stewart came to the end of his Hogmanay trip to Gleneagles luxury resort in Perthshire this month, he wanted to reward the staff for their excellent service. The result was a whopping £10,000 tip. Few people are in a position to be that generous but it does at least reflect the original purpose of the tip.

The practice of leaving a coin “To Insure Promptitude” developed in England in the 17th century and we exported it to America alongside the Pilgrim Fathers. Over there, it developed into a field sport with waiting staff not just expecting a tip but upbraiding anyone not fulfilling their expectations. To avoid unpleasant confrontations, restaurants started adding a service charge to bills, which has crept up to 20-25 per cent.

That approach has now leaked back across the Atlantic. It started in London but service charges of 12.5-15 per cent are becoming common in Scotland. Of course, you can refuse to pay but prepare for an icy atmosphere when you leave and good luck if you ever want to return.

The argument for tips from the hospitality sector is that it supplements pay and gives workers a decent income, while incentivising them to be good at their jobs. When the industry is hard-pressed by increased costs and decreased public spending, tipping is seen as the oil that keeps the wheels of the business turning.

‘Tip creep’ is real

However the problem is, tipping is far from transparent. When we tap the screen agreeing to a service charge we have no idea where it ends up. The service we see is the order being taken, then brought to our table. But if a shopworker comes out from behind the till and gets us a product from the shelves, do they then deserve a gratuity? Why is hospitality the only sector where we are supposed to pay extra out of delight for being given what we came for when we walked through the door?

The answer is historic but in the States ‘tip creep’ is real. A recent survey showed gratuities to staff in bakeries are up 41 per cent and 161 per cent for theatre box office workers. You might say ‘more fool them’ to customers who indulge this but when tips become baked into the remuneration package, they are hard to shift.

What we need are proper rates of pay so false devices like gratuities aren’t needed to externally inflate earnings. Staff should not have to rely on customers’ generosity but should be able to depend on realistic wages based on experience and skill, not how charming they are when it comes time to wield the card machine.

There is hope. Despair at the spread of tipping culture in the States has led a small but growing group of restaurants across the country to ban it in favour of increased prices and higher hourly rates of pay. For the consumer, it gives more certainty and transparency and the bill usually ends up roughly the same. We just need to remember that the higher prices are offset by no expectation of a tip.

If we still want to offer one for exceptional service, then that is an individual decision for us rather than a demand created by a system that is well past its sell-by date.