What does levy reform mean for your organisation?
With tackling skills shortages at the heart of their plans, Labour has previously talked about allowing businesses to allocate up to 50% of their levy contributions towards funding non-apprenticeship training as part of their mission to “break down barriers to opportunity”.
Apprenticeship levy recap
The apprenticeship levy provides businesses with dedicated funding to upskill, reskill, and recruit to their workforce. If you have an annual wage bill over £3 million, you’ll have access to a levy pot to support growth.
Many find navigating the apprenticeship levy daunting. However, you’re missing out if you don’t leverage this training resource to hone your talent and close critical digital skills gaps in your business.
Key benefits of harnessing this funding include maximising your training investment with applied learning and fostering an equitable workplace culture with a diverse and inclusive talent pipeline. SMEs can also benefit from a levy transfer, helping them access apprenticeship opportunities.
What does a Labour win mean
Labour wants to reform the Apprenticeship Levy, criticising the current system’s rigid rules which ignore vital skills and training. They lay out a vision of putting employers at the heart of the skills system by allowing organisations to fund non-apprenticeship courses and make better use of unspent levy funds.
We believe that if employers are granted this additional flexibility, you will be able to invest government funding into a range of new training opportunities needed to future-proof your workforce and align with strategic goals.
Labour’s proposal also includes creating an expert body, “Skills England” to oversee reforms. This body would manage the qualifications and training programmes eligible for funding through your levy contributions, prioritising strategic areas such as digital and green skills.
It is unclear at this stage how SMEs would continue to access apprenticeships under the proposed system, but Shadow Minister, Toby Perkins has promised continued access to funding for non-levy payers. Preventing them from seeing any reduction in their access to apprenticeships.
How we can help
The opposition’s proposal aims to strike a balance between providing flexibility for large organisations and preserving apprenticeships. With apprenticeships continuing to be at the centre of the new skills and training agenda, QA’s award-winning programmes, spanning intermediate to master's level, will continue to transform teams in AI, cloud, and data.
Should Kier Starmer win the election, QA’s end-to-end learning model can support your organisation to re-allocate levy funds and explore new ways to assimilate and apply skills, at pace and scale. From scenario-based workshops to interactive hands-on labs and beyond. As your strategic partner, we’ll assist you in maximising training investment to achieve your digital transformation goals.
So, whether government legislation around the levy changes or stays the same, QA has you covered. Our 35+ years’ experience, strong vendor relationships and deep bench of experts mean we can configure learning programmes and training delivery to meet your organisational needs. Driving learning continuity, business connectivity, and collaboration across teams.
Curious about how the levy can benefit your organisation?
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