Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 23 April 2019 to Question 243426, what estimate his Department has made of the proportion of levy funds in employers’ accounts that will (a) expire and (b) be spent on apprenticeships before they expire; and if he will make a statement.

Levy-paying employers have up to 24 months from the point at which funds enter their account to spend the funds available. The 24 month expiry period is designed to give employers time to develop their apprenticeship programmes whilst encouraging employers to take action to create new apprenticeship opportunities. Funds will only expire on a month by month basis from May 2019 if an employer has spent less on apprenticeship training and assessment in the past 2 years than the amount that went into their account in May 2017.

We do not anticipate that all levy-payers will use all the funds in their accounts, though they are able to. Income from the levy is used to fund apprenticeship training for both levy paying and non-levy paying employers.

Levy-paying employers are now able to transfer up to 25% of the annual value of their levy funds to other employers.

In May 2019, the 24-month expiry date will be reached for the earliest declared levy funds. We forecast that when the first ‘expiry’ period arrives in May, approximately £12 million pounds will remain unspent, representing 9% of the total levy funding that employers collectively paid in April 2017.