Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding his Department allocated from the apprenticeship budget to (a) apprenticeship levy paying employers, (b) top up payments to apprenticeship levy paying employers, (c) non-apprenticeship levy paying employers, (d) ongoing costs of apprenticeships already in training prior to 1 April 2017, (e) English and maths qualifications, (f) incentive payments for 16- to 18-year-old apprentices and (g) additional support for apprentices that are care leavers or have special needs in financial year (i) 2017-2018 and (ii) 2018-19.

The balance that levy payers see in their apprenticeship service accounts is distinct from the department’s ring-fenced apprenticeships budget. The balance in employers’ accounts is based on their total levy contributions and how many of their employees live in England. The department also tops up these funds by 10% after this English portion has been calculated.

Levy-paying employers can use the funds in their accounts to place orders for the training and assessment of their apprentices. The department then pays the relevant providers and end-point assessment organisations directly from its ring-fenced apprenticeships budget. An amount equal to the value of this provider payment is also deducted from the levy payer’s account balance.

The department’s ring-fenced apprenticeship budget is set in advance by Her Majesty’s Treasury to fund apprenticeships in England only. The expenditure on various parts of the apprenticeship programme is calculated based on the cash payments made from this ring-fenced budget.

It should be noted that aggregated information on spending by the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) and the department for 2017-18 is held by the ESFA and included here, but information for 2018-19 will be published in the audited annual reports and accounts later this year. Annual data on levy collected in 2018-19 will be published by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.

In 2017-18, spending on apprentices employed with levy payers, and who started training after the levy was introduced, was £268 million.

In making employers’ levy contributions available as funds in their apprenticeship service accounts, the government applies a 10-per-cent top-up to these contributions. However, the balances in these accounts are distinct from the department’s ring-fenced budget for apprenticeships. Where employers are using some or all of this top-up to fund new apprenticeships, this spend is reflected in the answer to (A) above.

£189 million was spent on training for apprentices who started on or after 1 May 2017 with employers who do not pay the levy. In 2017/18, £1,065 million was spent on ongoing costs of training apprentices who started before the levy was introduced in May 2017.

Of the £457 million spent on new starts in 2017-18 (£268 million on levy payers and £189 million on non-levy payers), £38 million was spent on English and Maths teaching. £72 million was spent on additional provider payments and employer payments for apprentices aged 16 to 18 and apprentices aged up to 24 years old who have either an education, health and care plan or who have been in local authority care. £27 million was spent on other smaller elements of funding policy, such as learning support.