After strong lobbying by AELP, the chancellor’s autumn budget on 29 October contained a welcome announcement that the employer co-investment rate for taking on apprentice is being halved to 5%. Confirmation of the date of implementation for this measure will follow in due course.
In response, AELP CEO Mark Dawe said,
““This is a major and positive shift which AELP has been pushing hard for since before the levy was introduced and it should enable providers to work with smaller businesses to start getting back to offering apprenticeships to young people and local communities. We are grateful to Anne Milton, Robert Halfon and Gordon Marsden for their significant efforts in making this happen“.
Below are the relevant extracts from the Treasury’s red book on the Budget skills announcements:
4.48 Apprenticeships – The government will introduce a package of reforms to strengthen the role of employers in the apprenticeship programme, so they can develop the skills they need to succeed. As part of this:
4.49 National Retraining Scheme – The government will work with employers to give workers the opportunity to upskill or retrain. The Budget allocates £100 million for the first phase of the National Retraining Scheme (NRS). This will include a new careers guidance service with expert advice to help people identify work opportunities in their area, and state-of-the-art courses combining online learning with traditional classroom teaching to develop key transferable skills. The National Retraining Partnership between the government, the Confederation of British Industry and the Trades Union Congress will focus on job-specific retraining in phase two.
4.50 Skills pilots – The government will fund £20 million of skills pilots. This will include:
The Autumn Budget 2018 documents are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/budget-2018-documents