Firms that have a pay bill valuing £3 million or above are legally required to pay into the Apprenticeship Levy. However, businesses are able to claim back with the same Levy and train more people. If the funds are not claimed back within two years, all of the money that is put in by businesses is lost to the taxman. Therefore, it would make sense that those businesses would claim back their funds while also training the future generation of the industry.
It is thought that perhaps, Firms do not understand this Apprenticeship Levy, and therefore are missing out on the vital opportunities that are available. As a part of this, some companies may have looked into the positives and negatives of the Levy before making a decision, a number of other companies will be out of pocket because they haven’t managed to get to grips with the Levy early enough to take advantage of the benefits.
It has perhaps been seen as more worrying that businesses are losing out on the chance to train existing employees as well as new employees during a time in the industry when the country is seeing a deficit in the amount of skilled workers available to carry out work. The country is seeing a high level of skills shortages; therefore, it is vital that companies make the most of the opportunities on offer to meet this demand. It makes even more sense to reap the benefits of an opportunity that a business could be contributing to anyway.
CEO Develop Training works as training specialists and has seen the lower levels of interest shown by businesses worrying. The company works on a number of Levy-funded apprenticeships with a range of major utility and construction companies while also offering advice that will help firms to plan how best to use the Levy in order to meet all of their training needs. The training company has said that they would advise any company that is affected by the Apprenticeship Levy to get specialist help while working their way through the different training options on offer.
