Major employees pledge cash for apprenticeships

AFUND aimed at increasing apprenticeships in the West Midlands has received a £500,000 boost.

The Apprenticeship Levy Transfer Fund, which is run by the West Midlands Combined Authority, has been bolstered after three major employers signed up to a levy transfer initiative.

The BBC, National Express and Wesleyan are among the latest big businesses to pledge their unspent apprenticeship levy to the authority’s transfer fund which is then used to cover training costs for apprentices at SMEs in the West Midlands.

So far, the combined authority has used transferred levy money to fund training for 70 apprentices.

The levy is charged by HM Revenue and Customers on all businesses with a payroll of more than £3 million.

The money is held centrally by the Government and businesses across the country can apply for a slice of the funding to pay up to 90 per cent of the costs of training their apprentices.

After a two-year period, unspent levy contributions are “sunset” and retained by the Government.

Under the West Midlands Combined Authority’s deal, regional organisations can transfer their unspent levy to its fund which ensures the money is kept within the region and avoids the risk of it being sunset.

West Midlands Mayor Andy Street said: “These are very important employers in the West Midlands and it is brilliant they have agreed to transfer their unspent levy funds to boost apprenticeship training at smaller businesses.

“As part of last summer’s Skills Deal, the Government agreed to give us unique powers to transfer levy funds in the region and now we are delivering on this to super-charge apprenticeships in the West Midlands and create more job opportunities for younger people.

“We had already signed up HSBC, Lloyds and BT before this announcement but this is really just the tip of the iceberg. We hope the levy fund will collect up to £40 million to create new apprenticeships for people in the region.”

James Rutter, head of learning and organisational development at National Express, said: “As one of the region’s biggest private sector employers, we are always looking at how we can improve skills and provide more job opportunities across the West Midlands.

“As well as supporting those that are not in employment, we’ve already utilised some of our own levy to provide new skills for existing staff, helping to deliver an excellent public transport system for our customers.”