EC Meeting November 2018

of training and assessment for that apprentice. The levy paying employer would have to cover the remaining 10%.

If an employer chooses to exceed the funding cap for an apprenticeship, co-investment cannot be used to pay for this.

An example of co-investment:

 Employer chooses apprenticeship in band 9 with a maximum price of £9,000  Employer negotiates a price of £8,500 with their provider  Government co-invests 90% = £7650  Employer co-invests remaining 10%= £850  Employer and provider agree to spread this over 10 instalments of £85

Actions: Learn to Earn facilitated by The Apprenticeship Levy driven by TUs More research is needed into how the TUs could facilitate this program using their links with local industry. The TUC have always supported mandatory contributions for a training levy with emphasis on the quality of the training provision rather than quantity. The Trade Unions could facilitate this funding pathway directly with Employers and use SOUK as the conduit to rolling out this initiative Although employers with a pay bill of £3m or over will have to pay the levy, the pay bill size is based on the earnings of “employees” – this is good for SME’s with a small number of employees. The earnings of workers on casual contracts, such as agency workers or zero hours contracts will not count towards an employer’s pay bill. This is concerning as, employers may seek to restructure their workforce to avoid levy payments and employers could shift employees on permanent contracts into more flexible forms of employment. Another concern is that public sector budgets could be negatively impacted as a result of levy payments. If the NHS contributes approx. £190m per year in levy contributions; to recoup this they would have to take on around 42,000 apprentices. In 2016 the NHS recruited around 19,800 apprentices. Therefore, the NHS is possibly not recouping a significant amount of levy funding it has had to pay in. Some industries operate established levy systems, or other collective training arrangements. Employers who already use existing mandatory levy systems (construction and engineering construction) also have to contribute to the national Apprenticeship Levy. Research needs to be done to pinpoint the areas of “best fit” for a Learn to Earn scheme

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