Getting Ready for the Levy

The Government is committed to increasing the growth of apprenticeships as a viable and significant option for developing skills and employment opportunities.  There is a commitment to achieve 3 million apprenticeship starts in the UK economy by 2020 and to facilitate this there are major changes in apprenticeship national policy and the introduction of some significant reforms.

Briefly these are

• Employers will be expected to be more directly involved in investing and supporting apprenticeship activity and developing new standards and frameworks
• In April 2017 an annual Apprenticeship Levy will be introduced and applied to all organisations with a pay bill of £3m or more.  Organisations will pay 0.5% of their pay bill into the levy and able to use this to fund the training of apprentices
• All public sector organisations will have a legal duty to support apprenticeship starts and will be set a target of 2.3% of their workforce
• The value of apprenticeships is to be realigned.  The term is to be protected by law and there is an expectation that the apprenticeship route can be used to achieve knowledge and skills up to an equivalent of Masters or Doctorate level.  A significant growth in the number of higher level apprenticeships is anticipated.

The apprenticeship reforms are significant and will have major implications for NHS organisations, including

• NHS organisations will be some of the largest levy payers and it is estimated that in excess of £35m will be paid into the Levy by North West NHS organisations.
• To meet the public sector target organisations will have to significantly increase the number of apprenticeship starts.  It is estimated that to meet the Public Sector target of 2.3% over 4000 apprenticeship starts will need to be achieved by North West NHS organisations.

To help organisations prepare for the introduction of these major reforms Health Education England (working across the North West) is working with organisations and other stakeholders to gather information and provide support.  The resources available in the form of a toolkit will be updated regularly as new information is received.  In addition we will hold a series of webinar Open Space discussions to allow for the sharing of good practice and the raising of issues and questions. 

Toolkit - see file below

For more information see the eWIN Hot Topic on the Apprenticeship Levy

HEE (NW) Open Space Webinars

The following dates/sessions are being provided for webinar discussions

Jun 02, 2016       2:00 PM

Jul 05, 2016        3:00 PM

Aug 04, 2016      11:00 AM

Sep 07, 2016       3:00 PM

Please register via this link.

Page originally published: 18th May 2016

Page last updated: 21st October 2016