Apprenticeship Levy and Funding
Apprenticeship Levy
What is the apprenticeship levy?
It is a government levy paid by all employers with a pay bill in excess of £3 million, set at 0.5% of the pay bill. The University can draw down this funding to either upskill existing employees or to train newly employed apprentices.
How can you turn the levy in to an opportunity for your department?
- You can upskill your current experienced staff and support their skills development for future needs
- You can bring in fresh, talented, new staff and and provide them with training to help grow your department
Using Levy funded apprenticeships can help nurture expertise within the University as well as help produce operational change to improve productivity.
Apprenticeships may provide positive benefits, such as encouraging personal and professional development, engaging staff and reducing staff turnover, resulting in a more motivated and satisfied workforce.
| You can spend levy money on | You can't spend levy money on |
|---|---|
| apprenticeship training | apprentice/staff wages |
| apprenticeship end-point assessment | statutory licences to practise |
| equipment used to achieve the apprenticeship framework | travel and subsidiary costs |
| accommodation costs for residential modules | traineeships |
| Registration and examination (including certification) costs associated with mandatory qualifications can be claimed | work placement programmes |
| cost of setting up or running an apprenticeship programme | |
| managing agents and those providing a brokerage service to an employer | |
| supervision and management costs |
Funding
- You are responsible for selecting the training provider, with support from the Apprenticeship Team, and agreeing the cost of the apprenticeship with them.
- The University has a supplier framework agreement in place with six approved training providers.
- The training programme chosen must be an approved apprenticeship standard to be fully funded by the Levy. All apprenticeship standards are placed in one of 15 funding bands, ranging from £1,500 to £27,000, which is the maximum amount of Levy funds that can be used for the off the job training and assessment for each apprenticeship.
- A training provider may charge a price in excess of the funding band, in which case the department would need to pay the difference between the funding band maximum and the total negotiated price. In most cases it is unlikely that this will happen.
- A full list of approved apprenticeship standards and their funding bands can be found at Apprenticeship Funding Bands.
You must contact the Apprenticeship Team so that they can record the apprentice in the University's Digital Apprenticeship Service (DAS) account.
The Apprenticeship Team will need the following information:
- Name of apprentice
- Date of birth
- Apprenticeship training course (including level)
- Planned training start date
- Planned training end date
- Total agreed apprenticeship price (excl VAT)
- Training Provider
- Once the apprentice is set up on DAS, monthly payments will be automatically taken from the account and sent to the training provider.
- If the apprentice leaves the University or completes their apprenticeship early, you must notify the Apprenticeship Team of the change immediately, as the change will need to be recorded on the DAS so that payments stop.