The government plans to remove some level 7 apprenticeships from the scope of levy funding, FE Week understands.
Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer is expected to highlight steps to reform the apprenticeship levy into a growth and skills levy – so that it can be used to pay for other types of training – during his speech at Labour’s party conference tomorrow.
The announcement is expected to include a move to shorter apprenticeships – meaning the end of the 12-month minimum duration rule in some sectors – and a recommitment to reintroduce a foundation-style pre-apprenticeship.
England’s current apprenticeship budget is at breaking point and is forecast to soon go overspent, largely due to the rise in higher level apprenticeships which are the most expensive to deliver.
Multiple sources have said that part of the government’s plan is to restrict employers’ ability to use their apprenticeship levy contributions to pay for level 7 apprenticeships – an idea that FE Week revealed was on the cards last year.
This would free up a slice of the levy to fund non-apprenticeship training and other priorities including the government’s “youth guarantee”.
The exact types or number of apprenticeship standards in line for the chop are not yet known.
Some of the most popular level 7 apprenticeships include the senior leader programme and the accountancy/taxation professional.
FE Week previously revealed that spending on level 6 and 7 apprenticeships soared from £44 million in 2017/18 to £506 million in 2021/22 – hitting £1.325 billion in total over that period. Figures for more recent years are not yet known, but the programmes now account for over a fifth of England’s annual apprenticeship budget.
Spending on level 7 apprenticeships alone rose from £11 million in 2017/18 to £216 million in 2021/22 – totalling £588 million over that period.
Meanwhile, spending on level 2 apprenticeships dropped by a third over that period, from £622 million to £421 million.
Levy spending on those aged 25 and over more than doubled between 2017/18 and 2021/22, growing from £460 million to £934 million.
At the same time, spending on apprenticeships for young people aged 16 to 19 fell by £60 million, or about 10 per cent, from £686 million to £626 million.
Labour has been approached for comment.
It’s a joke that apprenticeships are all going to old people and there is nothing left for anyone young. There should be a maximum age for government funding. After that, employers can pay to train their employees as they should.
So the only way you’ll get a degree level qualification is by going to University. What a load of B*****ks. Again we see university graduates stopping those with the skills, developed over time, should be excluded
Lets go back to the 80s when only the top 20% went to university (and make it free). The rest can go to technical (or similar) colleges.
Agree entirely 20% to university will result in a proper university tuition like Educating Rita and free all best Peter C
This is brilliant news, lets get the focus back on lower-level apprenticeships for entry to mid level careers. The lack of level 2 apprenticeship starts since 2017 and the loss of some key apprenticeship at this level such as Business Admin was such a shame.
Level 7 apprenticeships are a huge waste of money and will bring very little to the country’s struggling economy.
What a complete load of rubbish coming from a bias FE college. In certain industries level 7 apprenticeship are relevant for applied learning such as Science and Accounting. FE colleges want it easy delivering subjects such as business studies which can be studied at school.
How is funding a young person to become a lawyer a huge waste of money? The levy is supposed to support students to gain qualifications and have successful careers. It is unacceptable to exclude those with the ability to achieve a level 7 standard of learning.
The NHS makes heavy use of the levy to pay for level 6 and level 7 apprenticeships to train up minimum wage healthcare assistants to become qualified nurses and to give additional training to nurses, paramedics to be able to take some of the burden form doctors. If the funding for that goes how will we ever fill the skills shortage in healthcare? This country needs skilled and qualified professionals to exist.
Cannot agree more. As a senior Director responsible for Mental Health services, the level 7 Clinical Associate in Psychology apprenticeship has enabled a transformation of service delivery, and improved access to well-trained qualified interventions. There is no way we can afford, or physically train, the number of qualified Practitioner Psychologists we need to meet demand, and the use of apprenticeship models addresses this, with the added bonus of enabling people from more disadvantaged communities who may not be in a position to self-fund to have access to the Practitioner Psychology pathway.
Terrible idea
There is plenty of levy funding.
Why would we limit any type of development
83 standards approved for funding at level 7. (remember that this is Masters equivalent)
23/24 Q3 starts data shows:
43 standards have starts
20,394 starts in total
Dominated by Senior Leader (5709) & Accountancy and Tax professional (8038)
10,626 have been in post over 12 months at start
467 under 19s (317 of which are doing Accountancy and Tax & 70 Solicitor – Some of our brightest minds funneled into bean counting and navigating the byzantine legal system!)
The small amount in Healthcare should be preserved IMO.
The question is whether the spare budget will be used to adequately fund other standards? or will it be a bums on seats race to the bottom for quality?
From a social mobility and inclusivity standpoint, cutting level 7 levy funding is a backward step. As a medium-sized law firm, we rely heavily on the apprenticeship levy to access a vast pool of talented young people who do not want to go to university – for which there can be many reasons outside of financial restrictions. In addition to this, we are seeing apprentices develop their soft and business skills rapidly, whilst learning the technical skills they require in this field.
There would be enough for everyone if the government didn’t take a huge chunk of the levy, which is a tax on employers. The government wants to target priority professions and some of these require level 6 and 7 programmes. Why not make employers accountable for using a fair share approach across all levels so they could meet their workforce priorities. Removing a whole tier is not the answer.