Additional Apprenticeship Funding From Large Businesses

The Government have announced a new service to help business’ fund Apprenticeships. Businesses of any size can now get Apprenticeship funding with a transfer of apprenticeship funds from a larger levy paying businesses. Even companies such as Amazon are involved in this service.

Large employers that pay the apprenticeship levy can now transfer a maximum of 25% a year of levy funds to smaller non-levy businesses. These businesses can then use this money to pay for apprenticeship assessment and training. This saves them from having to pay their 5% contribution. It’s basically a way of the bigger organisations supporting the smaller ones. Which is definitely a worthwhile investment in post-pandemic Britain!

The businesses the large organisations help to fund is entirely up to them; they could choose to support an entire sector across the country, specific sectors in specific areas, or just their local area.

It works like this:

Your transfer allowance

Your transfer allowance is calculated as 25% of your previous financial year’s apprenticeship levy funds. The apprenticeship service calculates this amount as 25% of:

• the total amount of levy you declared in the previous tax year
• with the English percentage applied (the percentage of your employees that live in England)
• plus the top-up payment of 10% from the government

You cannot transfer more than your 25% allowance in each financial year.

(source: GOV.uk)

With this new opportunity, businesses can ‘browse for funding opportunities; apply for a transfer of funds to cover all the costs of training and assessing apprentices (up to the funding band maximum); and build key relationships with large businesses.

“Our small and medium-sized businesses are the cornerstone of our economy, and so I’m thrilled that we’re making it easier for them to take on apprentices. 

Our Plan for Jobs is equipping people with the skills they need to find work, and I’m immensely proud to see these new reforms providing even more apprenticeship opportunities”

– Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer

We think that it’s fantastic that already large organisations have pledged over £1,000,000 for the 2021/22 financial year – and the Government expect many more to pledge in the coming weeks.

All sorts of organisations have agreed to be part of this service, including:

• Amazon, who have up to £50,000 available for the digital and creative & design industries;
• DPD Group, who have up to £342,263 available for care services, charity, education & childcare, engineering & manufacturing;
• University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, who have up to £200,000 available for business administration and health & science.

Find out more about this service here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/transferring-your-apprenticeship-levy-to-another-business

or alternatively, if you wish to start searching for opportunities you can do so here: https://transfers.manage-apprenticeships.service.gov.uk/Opportunities