Apprentices: Small Businesses

(asked on 5th February 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the effect of the apprenticeship levy on the number of apprenticeships being offered by non-levy paying SMEs that co-invest 10 per cent of the cost of training an apprentice.


Answered by
Anne Milton Portrait
Anne Milton
This question was answered on 8th February 2018

The apprenticeship levy is paid by employers with a payroll of over £3 million a year. These employers are able to spend funds they have paid into the levy through their apprenticeship service account. All other employers use funds that have been allocated to providers, who offer apprenticeship training.

We have recently awarded hundreds of providers across the country with initial awards totalling around £485 million to deliver apprenticeship training for non-levy paying employers.

Data on apprenticeship starts is published in our ‘FE Data Library: apprenticeships’ at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/fe-data-library-apprenticeships.

Smaller employers are encouraged to take advantage of support available including the government co-investment of 90 percent of training and assessment costs for apprenticeships. This means employers only pay 10 percent towards the costs of apprenticeship training. The government believes that employers benefit from making this direct financial contribution, through taking greater ownership and responsibility for the costs.

Under the new funding rules, 100 per cent of the cost of training is paid for small employers, with fewer than 50 employees, who take on apprentices who are 16 to 18 years old, 19 to 24 year old care leavers or 19 to 24 year olds with an Education and Health Care Plan.

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