Posted on 30 Apr 18
By Jenny Patrickson, Managing Director, Active IQ
I’m staggered to hear that of the £1.39 billion paid in to the apprenticeship levy a year ago, only £108 million has been withdrawn. Having £1.28 billion not yet spent is a massive waste of resources and opportunities.
It’s worrying that 92% of levy-paying organisations agree with the apprenticeship levy in principle but are facing what they perceive to be insurmountable barriers to implement the funding.
The apprenticeship levy process is unchartered water for many employers and the main barriers cited are not unexpected. But they can – and must – be resolved.
The key barriers include the process being more time-consuming than expected (30%), insufficient resource to develop an apprenticeship strategy (15%), too much time needed to research providers and programmes (16%) and the management of the apprenticeship process amounting to whole new job role (11%). Any one of these would be enough to put off an employer. But wasting the apprenticeship levy investment cannot be an option.