The levy was launched to help reduce the skills gaps within England. If your organisation has a wage bill over £3m, 0.5% of the total wage bill is deducted automatically. This is your Apprenticeship Levy which you can use to pay for apprenticeship training in your organisation, whether that be employing new members of staff onto apprenticeship programmes or signing up current employees.
Embedding apprenticeship training into your L&D strategies as a levy-paying organisation gives you the chance to be smart with budgets and strategic with CPD, and we’re here to help you every step of the way, ensuring you get value for your payments, without the headaches.
Our partnership with levy-paying employers does not just focus on apprenticeships. We’ve made it our mission to go ‘beyond the levy’ in the service that we provide from the very beginning. We embed ourselves in your organisation, ensuring we understand your business goals so we can advise the best use of L&D funding to help you achieve them.
The breadth of our training proposition is unrivalled, and we can support your requirements – no matter how diverse – thanks to our access to other government-funded L&D initiatives. You’d be hard-pressed to find another provider that offers all the delivery models we do, and it’s this that makes working with us so unique and effective.
We’ll help you create and implement your L&D strategy to maximise the value you get from your levy payments and other funding avenues, making sure we do all the heavy lifting.
Talk to our expert teams about the ambitions you have for your organisation. Our specialists are trained to deal with clients who pay into the apprenticeship levy and provide bespoke consultancy services to help you embed apprenticeships into training and recruitment plans. We’ll take a detailed look at the skills (and skills gaps) in your business and help you explore how L&D can support you to achieve your goals… or maybe you already know, that’s great! Let’s get started.
We’ll work with you to put together apprenticeship programmes that will bring true value to your business and help you set up your Apprenticeship Account to keep track of your levy contributions.
Your new member of staff (or current employee – don’t forget, apprenticeships aren’t just for entry level roles!) enrols onto their apprenticeship scheme and they’ll supported by our dedicated coaches throughout the entire programme.
You and your employee/s have completed the programme and passed EPA – well done! What shall we do next?
Levy-paying organisations can transfer levy funds to other organisations to help fund apprenticeships. They can transfer up to 25% of their levy pot per year. This can have an extensive positive impact on smaller organisations that can't afford the cost of apprenticeship training. We've also seen many instances of levy-paying organisations transferring their funds to businesses in their supply chain to allow them to make use of apprenticeship training within their businesses. This has great a knock-on effect on the service they go on to provide to the transferring business.
As part of the government's commitment to apprenticeships, they often release incentives and grants for employers taking on apprentices in their business. Of course, it's important to ensure an apprentice is the right fit for your organisation rather than be drawn in by the incentive but they're a great additional support for responsible employers. Find out more about the apprenticeship grants available here.
The apprenticeship levy was implemented on 6th April 2017 to encourage employers to use apprenticeships to close the skills gaps in their businesses. Employers with a payroll threshold exceeding £3 million began their monthly levy payments from that specific date.
There are some who believe the apprenticeship levy should be more of a skills levy with less strict rules on what it can be spent on but, for now, it remains specifically for apprenticeships.
Every eligible employer is required to make monthly payments of the apprenticeship levy, which amounts to 0.5% of their payroll. The payment is collected automatically by HMRC through the employer's PAYE system at the end of each month. You can access your payments in your online Apprenticeship Service Account.
Employers with a wage bill over £3m pay 0.5% of that amount into their own levy account which they can utilise for apprenticeships in their own business.
One thing to keep in mind is that the apprenticeship levy is applied to businesses based in England. So, if you have employees who work within the devolved nations, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, they will only qualify for apprenticeship training through the levy if they spend at least 50% of their working time in England.
Businesses that don't pay into the levy can also access levy funds through a levy transfer.
In essence, a levy-paying employer can opt to transfer a portion of their levy funds to another employer, enabling the recipient to use the transferred funds to train their own apprentices.
The transfer process is from one specific employer to another specific employer for a specific apprenticeship programme for a specific number of apprentices but we can help you with all the complicated bits. Levy-paying businesses can transfer a maximum of 25% of their annual levy fund each year.
This can have an extensive positive impact on smaller organisations that can't afford the cost of apprenticeship training. We've also seen many instances of levy-paying organisations transferring their funds to businesses in their supply chain to allow them to make use of apprenticeship training within their businesses. This has great a knock-on effect on the service they go on to provide to the transferring business.
We're afraid not. The funds in your apprenticeship levy pot can only be used for apprenticeship training programmes or the End-point Assessment. They cannot be used for wages or non-apprenticeship training programmes or things.
However, there aren't any rules associated with the grants and incentives the government offers employers for taking on apprentices so you would be able to contribute that extra income towards things like the apprentice's wages.
Levy payments are automatically taken each month through your PAYE and added to your apprenticeship service levy account. They are then available for you to use on apprenticeship training for the next 24 months. After 24 months, they will expire and revert to central government budgets. This policy is intended to encourage consistent investment in high-quality apprenticeship training. When making payments for apprenticeship training, the government will prioritise the utilisation of the oldest funds in your account first, reducing the risk of fund expiry.
So, for example, funds paid into your account in April will expire the following April if they haven't been used.
Don't settle for a one-size-fits-all approach. Contact us now to discover how our apprenticeship programme can be perfectly tailored to suit your business.
