Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what reasons non-levy apprenticeship funding is not allocated to education providers on a pro-rata basis.

Apprenticeship Training providers are economic operators providing services to the Education and Skills Funding Agency in a market. As such, the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 therefore apply and it was not possible to allocate non-levy apprenticeship funding to education providers on a pro-rata basis.

The proportion of the non-levy apprenticeship budget allocated to each of the nine English regions was determined by the most recent historic delivery pattern available at the time of the procurement. This was designed to help to maintain provision stability during the 15 months of the contract and was set out clearly in the Invitation to Tender.