Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the effect of all local authority-run schools having to pay the apprenticeship levy on the quality of education provision in such schools.

The local authority will typically be responsible for paying the levy for community and voluntary controlled schools where the local authority employs the staff. As the employer, the local authority is responsible for calculating and paying any levy liability due. The government is confident that local authorities will want schools, where they contribute to paying the local authority’s levy liability, to make the most of their levy funds and so we expect them to encourage schools and other entities within the local authority to make use of the levy funds by taking on apprentices.