Britain’s manufacturers are calling for an urgent summit with the Government to discuss fundamental reforms to make the Apprenticeship Levy work, and to ensure the creation of more high-value manufacturing and engineering apprenticeships.
This follows a survey by EEF (
www.eef.org.uk), the manufacturers’ organisation, that shows overwhelming support for “sweeping reforms” to the operation of the Levy in light of the latest figures for overall Apprenticeship Starts (including a 31% year-on-year fall in January 2018).
Verity Davidge, EEF head of education and skills policy, said: “Everyone shares the ambition of creating high-quality apprenticeships, which are essential if industry is going to access the skills it will need in the future. However, while the Apprentice Levy had laudable aims, its impact has been highly damaging for employers and apprentices.
Initially, we have to address the alarming drop in starts, and then look at positive solutions that will make the Levy work for employers and learners in the long term — and meet the original pledges made to companies when it was introduced.”
According to the survey, just 5% of companies are content to leave the Levy as it is, while 52% want to see improvements made to the current system, and 26% want the Levy to be turned into a training levy.
Furthermore, 8% of companies have cancelled or delayed engineering apprenticeships because of the Levy, while 11% of companies looking to start an engineering apprenticeship for an existing employee have cancelled or delayed it — also because of the Levy.
The survey also backs criticism that the Levy was rushed in, as over half of companies (54%) say that apprenticeship standards have not been ready for delivery, while two fifths say that colleges and training providers are either unable or unwilling to deliver the apprenticeships that manufacturers want.
The EEF has proposed a number of reforms to make the Levy work.
These include: moving the Apprenticeship (Levy) Budget from Department Expenditure Limit (DEL) to Annually Managed Expenditure (AME), which would mean that the budget for apprenticeships is based on demand and would allow the Government to spend more on high-quality apprenticeships where there was demand from employers to deliver them; and increasing ‘the lifetime of funds’ limit for employers to spend their Levy to at least 48 months (the length of an engineering apprenticeship) and removing the upper limit of £27,000 (this would honour one of the key pledges that the Government made to employers on the introduction of the Levy — to cover the true cost of training and assessment).