A Glasgow finance specialist believes it has become the first firm in Scotland to provide equal parental rights to all staff.

Minerva Innovation Group, which helps firms access tax relief on research and development (R&D) investments, is going beyond the current statutory entitlements by offering its male employees the same parental leave and remuneration that women are entitled to following the birth of a child.

Minerva’s new parental policy means all staff are entitled to one year and five weeks off to be with their new-born child. The five weeks beyond the initial 12-month period relate to holiday leave accrued during the year staff are on parental leave.

Adam Pearce, founder and director of Minerva, implemented the change after recently becoming a father for the first time. It also came on the heels of a “really strong” financial performance by the firm in the year to July, which meant it could afford to introduce the measure. Minerva has a team of 10 people.

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Mr Pearce, a former professional basketball player with Glasgow Rocks (now Caledonia Gladiators), told The Herald: “What we are offering is a full, one-year parental leave for dads, which is not something the Government offers, and it is not something that to my knowledge [is offered by other companies].

“For some reason, not even the most progressive companies are offering it, which is strange. Technically, it is a year plus five weeks, because the annual leave accumulates over the year… which is 55 weeks more than the statutory leave that they get. So, if dads join us, or men join us that become dads, or become dads to a second child, then they get an extra 55 weeks, in essence, which is just amazing, an extra 55 weeks with your child.”

Mr Pearce added: “I have never understood why parental leave wasn’t equal for mothers and fathers and once I became a father and a company director, I knew it was morally right to strive to achieve this gender equality in the workplace.”

Under statutory paternity leave, employees are entitled to up to two weeks leave when their partner gives birth, receiving only statutory paternity pay for that period. Holiday leave must typically be taken if they would like to spend more than those two weeks with their new-born child.

Women can take up to a year of maternity leave, with the level of statutory pay they receive falling significantly after six weeks. However, parents can share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay between them.

Mr Pearce noted that while the pay element of the Minerva package is not unique, it is still unusual. “A lot of companies offer [paternity] pay above and beyond the statutory pay,” he said. “But then again, it is quite unique for men [to be offered equal paternity pay]."

While paternal leave entitles employees to two weeks of statutory pay, Mr Pearce notes: “With us, it is 100% of their salary for a minimum of three months. Then it just kind of goes down for the duration of parental leave. For women it is exactly the same.”

Asked what the benefit will be to the firm from the equal paternity pay policy, Mr Pearce replied: “To be honest, my initial thought process was; what is the moral thing to do, because I had just become a parent myself. I have a daughter and that’s when it really hit me that I cannot believe that men only get two weeks.

“Now, obviously I am a director. Regardless of what the parental leave situation is I will never ever take a year off because I am run the company. It was just a move towards gender equality and just an act of morality more than anything else.”

Mr Pearce added: “If I had to give an answer in terms of what’s in it for us as a business, it means we can be a safe haven for competent employees who have done nothing wrong other than wanting to spend time with their children."

Minerva, which also offers staff full flexibility over working patterns and place of work, introduced the new policy amid a strong period for the business. The firm helps clients in a broad range of sectors, from veterinary medicine and surgery, livestock farming, and racehorse breeding to architecture, construction, engineering, energy, and software to attain tax relief from investment in R&D. “It’s really diverse,” Mr Pearce said.

“We are science and finance hybrids. For example, myself, I have a post-grad in advanced medical science, and a post-grad in finance.”

Mr Pearce said that while R&D can be about major technological breakthroughs, in many cases it relates to small but “appreciable” improvements in existing systems.

“It’s not about reinventing the wheel, but improving something that already exists,” he said. “Unfortunately, there is a huge misconception that R&D has to be ground-breaking and unique and never been done before, but actually just making improvements can constitute R&D.

“That’s where we come in, to bring across that message that you don’t have to be a huge company, it doesn’t have to be world-leading. Something that can make a small difference, done by a small company, can also qualify for R&D. That is something that I have done for years and years.”

Mr Pearce was pleased to note that R&D reliefs were unchanged at the recent Budget, and said the Labour Party recognises the long-term benefits that they bring.

He said: “Myself, my colleagues, and our clients and prospective clients were all holding our breath in the lead-up to the Budget. We were all quietly, nervously waiting to see what happened, and as far as R&D goes, Labour, the current government, is 100% supportive of R&D. It’s quite interesting because, while they introduced a tax rise [on employer national insurance contributions] across the board, they did not touch R&D, which was just music to my ears."

Mr Pearce added: “We had a number of contracts out to prospective clients which they didn’t sign until the Budget. Once the Budget was concluded, we had a number of clients sign the contracts we had out before. There is more ease now after the Budget.

“It makes sense because, with R&D tax relief, the Government is giving out cash credits, cash injections to businesses – whether they are profit or loss-making, whether they are big or small.

“People might initially think, if the Government is giving out money, it is losing money, but there is a quite a bit of data to suggest that, if the Government gives a company, say, a £50,000 cash injection, in the long term they will actually get back more than the £50,000, because the money is immediately invested into new staff or new machinery or new software licences. I think that is why Labour is so supportive of the R&D scheme, because they are not losing money in the long term… it is a positive return on investment.”