Aviva throws down family friendly gauntlet to Government and other employers

Company offers all 16,000 employees 26 weeks parental leave on full basic pay regardless of gender, or sexual orientation, or how they came to become parents

Aviva's policy will allow fathers to play a greater role in child care (Sean Gallup/Getty)

Insurers are not generally thought of as bastions of progressive thought, but Aviva might force a reassessment of that.

The company this morning announced that it will offer all of its 16,000 employees 26 weeks parental leave on full basic pay regardless of gender, or sexual orientation, or how they came to become parents (so adoption and surrogacy count).

In so doing it allows men to play a greater role in childcare, and potentially facilitates women returning to work earlier should they wish to do so after having a child.

It's a welcome move, and one that does the company credit.

But this is not just an example of a big business playing against type and coming over all cuddly.

There is a sound business logic at the core of its offer, which is, I am told, available to all staff at all grades and with no irksome qualifying period.

Being seen as a bright, forward thinking, progressive employer, is a wonderful way of attracting bright, forward thinking, progressive employees with the skills needed to drive a business forward at a time when the UK labour market is experiencing shortages in many areas, shortages which could be compounded as a result of the Government’s negative approach to Brexit.

It should also help with retaining those already on board.

However, it throws a harsh spotlight on the situation in much of the rest of Britain’s labour market, which is very different.

Earlier this year, for example, the TUC highlighted that statutory maternity pay for mothers in this country is among the worst in Europe - only Ireland and Slovakia trail the UK .

Meanwhile, the Government’s own offer to involve fathers through shared parental leave has been the damp squib of all damp squibs, a bureaucratic nightmare with a pitifully low take up. Less than 9,000 families this year, according to recent research.

While employers like Aviva typically offer better than Government minimums as a matter of course, they don't apply to the agency staff they sometimes hire, or the outsourced ancillary staff, because they will be employed by other, less progressive minded organisations.

The TUC’s employment policy officer Matt Creagh points out that many parents in insecure work, and at the mercy of agencies or contracting firms, simply don’t get access to family-friendly rights, because of the contracts they’re on.

And many low-paid workers simply can’t afford time off. The statutory paternity and shared parental leave for the few that take it up only pays £140 a week, less than half what a parent on the minimum wage would be earning.

In some respects, then, Aviva’s move, while admirable, serves to make the rich richer.

It would be still more praiseworthy if it, and others that follow in its wake, prove willing to prod the contractors they work with to follow its lead.

Even if they do that, however, it shouldn't get ministers, whose record is every bit as poor as Aviva’s is good, off the hook. The Government is currently failing Britain's families. It needs to do better.