Apprentices: Taxation

(asked on 10th April 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much and what proportion of the apprenticeship levy funding has been spent on the administrative costs of the (a) Education and Skills Funding Agency and (b) Institute for Apprenticeships since 2017, and if he will make a statement.


Answered by
Anne Milton Portrait
Anne Milton
This question was answered on 23rd April 2019

Employers’ levy funds are available for them to use to cover the cost of the training and assessment of their apprentices. Employers have 24 months to spend their funds from the point they enter their accounts. These funds are not used to support the administrative costs of the system.

Separate to this, HM Treasury provides the Department for Education, including the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) and the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (the Institute), with fixed annual administration and programme budgets.

In 2017-18, the ESFA spent £36 million (equating to less than 2 percent) of the £2 billion apprenticeships programme budget on the cost to deliver and run the programme. In addition, the Institute spent £3.8 million programme budget on running the programme.

The Department for Education (including the ESFA and the Institute) are also provided with administration budgets. In 2017-18, the administration spend was approximately £6.4 million in the department, and £33 million in the ESFA. This includes an estimate of the proportion of departmental overhead costs attributable to the apprenticeships programme. In addition, £4.6 million related to administration spend for the Institute.

The department will publish spending on the running costs of the programme for 2018-19 in its annual report and accounts.

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