Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the amount of Apprenticeship Levy funding for Level 6 qualifications that has been allocated to learners who already held a Level 6 qualification in each financial year for which data is available.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
The department is not able to make an accurate estimate of the funding for level 6 qualifications which has been allocated to learners who already hold a qualification at level 6, as data currently held on the prior attainment of apprentices is incomplete.
Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding his Department allocated to place children under 16 in (a) unregulated and (b) unregistered care settings in each of the last five financial years.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The information is not held centrally. Core funding for children’s services, including funding for placing looked-after children, is un-ring-fenced and part of the wider local government finance settlement. It is for local authorities to decide how best to spend the funding to meet their local needs, priorities and statutory responsibilities, including for children’s social care.
The local government settlement for 2020-21 set out proposals to increase local government resources by 4.4% above inflation, which is the largest increase in spending power in almost a decade. Under these proposals, core spending power will rise from £46.2 billion in 2019-20 to £49.1 billion in 2020-21.
We recognise the demand pressures on children’s social care. The government is providing local authorities with an additional £1 billion for adult and children’s social care in every year of this Parliament.
Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding his Department allocated to place children over 16 in (a) unregulated, (b) unregistered, and (c) semi-independent care settings in each of the last five financial years.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The information is not held centrally. Core funding for children’s services, including funding for placing looked-after children, is un-ring-fenced and part of the wider local government finance settlement. It is for local authorities to decide how best to spend the funding to meet their local needs, priorities and statutory responsibilities, including for children’s social care.
The local government settlement for 2020-21 set out proposals to increase local government resources by 4.4% above inflation, which is the largest increase in spending power in almost a decade. Under these proposals, core spending power will rise from £46.2 billion in 2019-20 to £49.1 billion in 2020-21.
We recognise the demand pressures on children’s social care. The government is providing local authorities with an additional £1 billion for adult and children’s social care in every year of this Parliament.
Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much and what proportion of Apprenticeship Levy funding was used to fund qualifications at each education level, in each year since 2018.
Answered by Michelle Donelan
The apprenticeship levy underpins our reforms to raise apprenticeship quality and supports employers to make long-term, sustainable investments in the skills that they need. Income from the levy is used to fund apprenticeships in all employers (both those who pay the levy and those who do not pay the levy).
The table below provides a breakdown for the financial year 2018-19 and shows spending on new apprenticeship starts since May 2017, following the introduction of the apprenticeship levy, in both levy-paying and non-levy paying employers, as well as spending on apprenticeships started before the levy. This is broken down for each level of apprenticeship.
2018-19 financial year spend by apprenticeships level in millions of pounds | ||||
Level | Levy | Non- Levy | Pre-Reform | Total |
2 | £247 | £236 | £100 | £584 |
3 | £388 | £253 | £178 | £819 |
4 | £77 | £17 | £10 | £103 |
5 | £65 | £11 | £11 | £87 |
6 | £53 | £5 | £6 | £64 |
7 | £34 | £7 | - | £40 |
Total | £864 | £528 | £305 | £1,697 |
*Participation spend only as per the 2018/2019 Financial Statements
*Rounded to the nearest million below the table and below where it says *participation spend only as per the 2018/19 Financial Statements.
Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much and what proportion of Apprenticeship Levy funding has been allocated to non-levy paying employers in each year since 2018.
Answered by Michelle Donelan
HM Treasury allocates a fixed, annual ring-fenced budget for apprenticeships to the Department for Education. The budget is independent of how much levy receipts are each year. The budget is used to fund new apprenticeship starts in levy and non-levy-paying employers and to cover the ongoing training costs of apprentices who are already in training.
Funding available for levy-paying employers depends on the employers’ levy contributions and how many of their employees live in England. For employers who do not pay the levy, we allocate funding based on our assessment of demand in the system at the time and overall long-term affordability of the programme. However, actual spending on the apprenticeship programme depends on the choices that employers make about the type and number of apprenticeships that they offer to meet their current and future skills needs.
In 2018-19, £809 million (37%) was allocated to non-levy employers from a total budget of £2,181 million for apprenticeships training.
In 2019-20, £766 million (32%) was allocated to non-levy employers from a total budget of £2,410 million for apprenticeships training.
Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much and what proportion of funding for apprenticeships was allocated to SMEs in (a) 2015, (b) 2016 and (c) 2017.
Answered by Michelle Donelan
The apprenticeship levy came into force on 6 April 2017, requiring all employers with an annual pay bill of £3 million or more to pay 0.5% of their pay bill to invest in apprenticeship training.
Prior to this, all funding allocations were made directly to training providers with no distinction being made as to the size of the employer they subsequently worked with.
We are therefore unable to provide a breakdown of funding allocated to small and medium employers (SMEs) in the period requested.
Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 14 January 2020 to Question 1755 how many of the 530,000 three and four year olds who are ineligible for 30 hours free childcare due to their parents not meeting the income requirement are (a) in single parent families and (b) in families where parents are in couples.
Answered by Nick Gibb
In our response to question 1755, the Department for Education estimated that in January 2019, 530,000 3-4 year-olds were ineligible for 30 hours due to one or both of their parents not meeting the minimum income requirements (more than the equivalent to 16 hours a week at national minimum wage or national living wage which is currently £6,800 a year). This included families where one or both parents chose not to or were unable to work. Information about the exact number of children in each category is not readily available and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
There is support available for parents with childcare costs outside of the free early education entitlements. For example, eligible families can get help with 85% of their childcare costs through Universal Credit, subject to a monthly limit of £646 for one child or £1108 for two or more children. Further information can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/universal-credit/what-youll-get. Families can also get help with the costs of childcare from the Tax Free Childcare scheme.
Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which employers have been allocated funding from the apprenticeship levy for the provision of the senior investment-commercial banking professional apprenticeship standard in each year since 2018; and how much funding was allocated to each of those employers.
Answered by Michelle Donelan
Since the introduction of the levy in April 2017, there have been 196 starts on the senior investment-commercial banking professional apprenticeships standard (this standard was approved for delivery in May 2018).
14 organisations are using the levy funds in their apprenticeship service accounts for this training. We are unable to provide names of specific organisations due to taxpayer confidentiality.
This amounts to a full cost commitment of £3.5 million, which is based on learners completing the course. The estimated actual costs to date are £0.7 million (£0.3 million in the 2018-19 academic year and £0.4 million in the 2019-20 academic year to date).
We have published the expenditure on apprenticeships training for the 2018-19 financial year (£1.7 billion). We will publish the expenditure for the 2019-20 financial year through the annual report and accounts which will be laid before Parliament in summer 2020.
We are listening to the concerns of businesses about the apprenticeship levy and are committed to making sure the apprenticeship programme continues to provide opportunities for people of all backgrounds, whilst meeting the needs of employers of all sizes and delivering for the
economy more broadly.