Apprentices: Coronavirus

(asked on 19th May 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will extend the eligibility of the Education and Skills Funding Agency's post-16 provider relief scheme established in response to the covid-19 outbreak to all apprenticeship providers.


Answered by
Gillian Keegan Portrait
Gillian Keegan
Secretary of State for Education
This question was answered on 2nd June 2020

Cabinet Office Procurement Policy Notice 2/20 has allowed us to apply a degree of flexibility to our normal funding arrangements. However, this flexibility only extends to support for organisations with a direct contract for services procured via a process compliant with Public Contract Regulations 2015.

Providers delivering apprenticeship training to employers that pay the apprenticeship levy, or to smaller (non-levy) employers where the training has been arranged through the Apprenticeship Service since 9 January 2020, do not hold a procured contract for services with the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) to do so, but hold a contract for services with employers for the delivery of training. Therefore, it is not possible to extend eligibility to the Provider Relief Scheme to these providers.

However, we have made significant changes to some aspects of our funding rules training to ensure that providers are able to continue to deliver quality apprenticeships and maintain their income throughout the disruption. Additionally, training providers have in many cases developed effective online learning resources which enables them to retain their apprentices on programme and so to continue to receive funding from ESFA.

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