Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much money was (a) raised by and (b) unspent from school organisations eligible to pay the apprenticeship levy in the (i) 2021-22 and (ii) 2022-23 academic years.

The apprenticeship levy is an important part of the government’s reforms to create a high-quality, employer-led apprenticeships system, and it supports employers of all sizes to invest in high-quality apprenticeship training.

As employers, schools and recruitment agencies with a pay bill of £3 million or more will pay the apprenticeship levy, which is reported to His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) via the Pay As You Earn scheme. HMRC holds the data on levy contributions and publish data on tax receipts here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hmrc-tax-and-nics-receipts-for-the-uk.

While levy-paying employers access their levy funding through their apprenticeship service accounts the department does not record their industry, sector or organisation type when they register an apprenticeship service account. For this reason, we are unable to provide data which shows the amount of levy funds entering the accounts of schools or recruitment agencies, or the proportion of that total which has been spent.