PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Apprentices: Taxation (23 June 2020)

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of enabling public sector employers to utilise unspent apprenticeship levy funding to help alleviate the decline in the number of apprentices as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.

Asked by:
Karin Smyth (Labour)

Public sector employers are embracing the opportunities that apprenticeships bring to develop their workforces. Apprenticeships accounted for more than one in ten new appointments in the public sector (12.7 per cent) between April 2018 and March 2019. We continue to engage regularly with employers from across the public sector, to support them to address any barriers to recruiting apprentices.

The apprenticeships budget funds the training and assessment costs in England for both levy payers and non-levy paying employers. Levy-paying employers, including those in the public sector, have full control over when and where they spend the funds available to them to meet their current and future skills needs, including by transferring up to 25% of an employer’s annual levy funds to support the sustainable development of skills in their supply chain or local area. We strongly encourage all public sector employers to make maximum use of their levy, particularly at the current time.

Apprenticeships will have an important role to play in creating employment opportunities, and in supporting employers in all sectors to access the skilled workforce that they need to recover and grow, following the COVID-19 outbreak. We want to support employers to take on new apprentices this year and will provide further detail in due course.

Answered by:
Gillian Keegan (Conservative)
3 July 2020