Annette Collins (pictured), head of Semta apprenticeship service, says that businesses need to make the most of the fundamental changes to skills funding that is arriving this spring.
She said that “this is a momentous moment in skills provision” and should not be “taken lightly”.
“We have skills shortages across the advanced manufacturing and engineering sector, and the levy offers an opportunity to employers across the sector to spend a potentially quite substantial sum of money on meeting their skills needs,” Collins explained.
“It’s really important to remember that employers will be able to be creative and flexible in how they spend their levy funds to benefit their business. They will be able to use them to up-skill and re-skill existing workers, as well as to recruit new talent.”
The levy is set to be introduced on 6 April this year. Semta said that it will be set at a rate of 0.5% of an employer’s annual payroll – a £15,000 allowance from government will mean that only employers with annual payrolls of over £3 million will ultimately pay any levy.
It added that this means that a majority of employers will not pay the levy and will not pay for their apprenticeships with the new digital voucher scheme. Instead, 90% of the cost of their apprenticeships will be covered by government, with further top-ups being offered too so that some non-levy funded apprenticeships will continue to enjoy full government funding.
And then from spring 2018, levy-paying employers will be able to transfer up to 10% of their apprenticeship vouchers to SMEs and their supply chains – offering the prospect of millions of pounds’ worth of additional funding cascading down through the advanced manufacturing and engineering sector.
Collins said: “These huge changes may seem daunting, especially to smaller companies – we will put our strong heritage of 60 years serving the engineering sector and our unique status among apprenticeship providers as part of the Semta Group to best use.”
