Since May 2017, radical changes have been introduced in the way apprenticeship funding works, including:

• Introduction of the Apprenticeship levy
• Introduction of the Apprenticeship service - an online service that allows employers to choose and pay for apprenticeship training more easily
• Introducing of a new ‘co-investment’ rate to support employers who don’t pay the levy (‘co-investment’ is when employers and government share the cost of training and assessing apprentices)

The Apprenticeship levy

If you’re an employer with a pay bill over £3 million each year, you must pay the apprenticeship levy from 6 April 2017.  Detailed guidance on how to pay the apprenticeship levy and all other information on this new levy is available on www.gov.uk

The Apprenticeship service

If you are a levy-paying employer, you can now create an account on the apprenticeship service to:

• receive levy funds for you to spend on apprenticeships
• manage your apprentices
• pay your training provider
• stop or pause payments to your training provider

Co-investment support (for employers with a payroll of less than £3M)

Non-levy paying employers will share the cost of training and assessing their apprentices with government - known as ‘co-investment’. What that means is that you pay 5% towards to the cost of apprenticeship training and government pay the rest (95%).

Additional support

• Employers with less than 50 employees get full funding for 16 – 18 year old apprentices training
• ALL employers receive a £1,000 grant for recruiting a 16 – 18 year old