It's all about the Levy...or is it?
The apprenticeship levy is big news at the moment, and so it should be - alongside the other apprenticeship reforms that come with it, it's one of, in fact no, it's THE most radical shake-up in the world of FE and workbased learning we've ever seen...and let's be honest there's been a few.
But even if you are one of the employers paying big sums into their levy 'pot', should you really be tryng to max out your spend on apprenticeships?
The basics: for employers with a paybill of over £3,000,000 they will pay 0.05% of that as a tax, kindly taken by HMRC. The bit of that paybill that relates to their England based employees will be available via a digital account to support apprenticeships (to pay approved trainng organisations delivery of that in the main).
For some, this will mean a hefty sum for them to utilise, and in many cases they simply won't be able to spend it all on apprenticeships - unspent levy sums will be redeployed back into the system to support other employers who want to deliver more apprenticeships. Hence the premise that the introduction of the levy will do 2 things:
- make funding apprenticeships and the Government's apprentice growth ambitions sustainable by pumping new money from employers into the system to do that,
- but also drive up employers' engagement with apprenticeships - making them really plan and invest in apprenticeships. Taxes often focus the mind!
In my view, once all the details are worked through and the Digital Apprenticeship Service is working effectively to support the levy accounts and payments that's exactly what it will do. Happy days!
It's those words 'plan and invest' that are key - even if you have a big old levy pot to spend on apprenticeships, you should still be basing your apprenticeship strategy on real tangible (and measurable) benefits to your business. Because without that strategy, all the amazing benefits (and there are loads), that apprenticeships can bring for businesses, and the apprentices themselves, will not be maximised. Do you need to plan for an ageing workforce, grow your own managers of the future or increase productivity in a certain area? Use those objectives as a measure for your apprenticeship programme. Make the amazing benefits of apprenticeships really work for you. The introduction of the new employer designed apprenticeship standards make the opportunties even greater - these are bespoke occupation based apprenticeships that will have greater fit with your business. It's good news, and whether you are affected by the levy directly, or not - perhaps we should actually be saying...
Is it all about the ROI?
I'm excited to help businesses with this planning, let me help you understand the apprenticeship reforms, the levy and the funding that's available. Let's look at which objectives you want to hit first, which of the new apprenticeship standards are right for your business, and which areas of the business you might want to focus your programme on now and further down line.
