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The apprenticeship levy: don’t risk losing yours
The Institute for Apprenticeships is forecasting a £500 million overspend on the levy budget by July 2019, rising to £1.5 billion for the year ending July 2021. (FE Week, 7th December 2018)
If you haven’t spent any of your apprenticeship levy, don’t panic, it’s not too late. April is the new financial year, so now is the ideal time to start planning your apprenticeship levy spend to make best use of your funds. It is important to remember that any funding that remains in a digital levy account after 24 months will expire. This means you have until April 19’ to spend them.
5 Steps to making the most of your Levy spend
- Review your business needs
Take some time to review your business needs as well as your training and recruitment requirements. Identify which areas of your organisation could benefit from a skills boost and consider the ways Apprenticeship training could help you to fill these gaps. Aspiration Training are happy to discuss requirements and plans with you – book for one of our Business Development Managers to come and see you.
- Partner with Aspiration Training
Working with an experienced training provider can help you to make the most of your Apprenticeship Levy funds by gaining on-going professional advice and support. Aspiration Training are here to support you along the way including setting up and managing your digital Apprenticeship account – and ensuring you gain the most value from the funds allocated to you.
- Manage your digital account effectively
Bear in mind that payments only start from the month that an Apprentice begins their training programme, so for those of you who have a backlog of funds building up in your digital account, you are likely to gain a false impression of what you can afford via your Levy funds. Apprenticeship training costs will always be debited monthly, so paying for 6 months of training in one go, isn’t an option.
- Consider the different ways to use your Levy
Remember that Apprenticeships apply to existing employees – including graduates – as well as new employees. Levy payments can only be used to cover Apprenticeship training, and not staff salaries, so utilising the Levy to upskill your existing staff members is a great way to spend your Levy funds.
- Don’t worry if your Levy funds run out
If you run out of funds in your Levy pot, what happens next? It’s called co-investment and means you are able to access additional funding in the same way as non-Levy payers. Co-investment means you’ll only pay 10% of apprenticeship training costs to your training provider, while the government will pay the remaining 90%. Your apprenticeship service account will let you know when your Levy funds are due to expire
Aspiration Training can help you make the most of your apprenticeship levy. If you haven’t spent yours yet, don’t panic. We’re here to work with you, offer advice and help you to identify your skills and training needs, so you are comfortable with how you spend your levy funds.
If you are still considering whether to invest your levy pot, let us convince you why you should…
