Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of apprentice levy-paying employers have transferred the maximum 25 per cent of their levy contributions to other employers in each financial year since 2017–18.

Levy paying employers have been able to transfer a proportion of their annual funds to other employers since April 2018, when the maximum transfer allowance was 10%. This was increased to 25% in April 2019 and from 22 April 2024, the department has doubled the levy transfer allowance to 50%.

The table below shows the percentage of levy-paying employers who spent all of their transfer allowance in each financial year from 2018/19 to 2023/24.

Transfers provide levy paying employers with more flexibility about how they spend the funds available to them, including supporting other businesses such as smaller employers, flexi-job apprenticeship agencies and charities to help meet local and sector-specific needs. The department has improved the transfer system, introducing a pledge and match service on GOV.UK, to make it easier to find other employers who wish to take on apprentices with transferred funds. Since the service was introduced in September 2021, over 500 employers have pledged to transfer over £37 million to support apprenticeships in businesses of all sizes, as of 9 February 2024.