Day 5 - 12 Days of Christmas
Using your Apprenticeship Levy or accessing funds can seem a challenge, yet with the right training provider it can be much smoother. At Davies Learning Solutions we have a highly experienced team of specialist experts who are on hand to answer your questions and help you make the most of your Apprenticeship Levy (whether you pay into the levy or not). To learn more about how to make the fund work for you, support your business goals, and improve employee engagement and retention, see below…
During the coronavirus crisis, unemployment has risen and is forecast to be as high as 15% by the end of the year. This puts even more pressure on the remaining staff to be able to deliver a wide range of skills and grow their knowledge.
Apprenticeships are often thought of as a way to recruit young talent into organisations, however they are equally suitable for talent already employed in your business and there is no age limit.
So, should more organisations be thinking about Apprenticeships during this uncertain time?
In 2018-19, there were 742,400 people participating in an Apprenticeship of some kind in England, with 393,400 Apprenticeship starts and 185,100 Apprenticeship achievements.
It certainly makes sense on paper, if you are paying into the Apprenticeship Levy, then the money will remain there for two years for you to use and if not used, it will be removed and distributed to organisations that don’t pay into the levy to give them the opportunity to access Apprenticeships for up to 10 staff and with only a 5% contribution required from the smaller firms (even fully funded in some cases).
Furthermore, in response to COVID-19, the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, released more funding towards hiring new Apprentices under the age of 25 and has permitted learning to continue whilst on furlough. For non-levy firms, the opportunity to access 95% of funding for Apprenticeships has also been increased from 3 places per organisation to 10. Larger firms can also gift up to 25% of their pot to other Employers.
However, figures this year discovered that employers are failing to use hundreds of millions of pounds that was intended for training Apprentices as part of the Apprenticeship Levy, with £400million of funding relinquished and at least 55 of the largest employers in England having each released more than £1million back to the Government.
Due to these concerning statistics, and the increasing number of employers not taking advantage of the Apprenticeship opportunities, staff may be missing out on developing skills and knowledge at a time when organisations need it most and when staff may have the capacity to learn due to time and energy saved from commuting etc.
Access the link to reserve your funds. For more information watch the webinar below.
