"Today’s announcement to increase the amount that employers can transfer of their Levy contribution is a positive sign that the Government is listening to council concerns around the need for flexibility to ensure the Levy is genuinely effective."
Responding to the apprenticeship levy announcement by the Chancellor Philip Hammond at the Conservative Conference today, Cllr Mark Hawthorne, Chairman of the LGA’s People and Places Board, said:
“Today’s announcement to increase the amount that employers can transfer of their Levy contribution is a positive sign that the Government is listening to council concerns around the need for flexibility to ensure the Levy is genuinely effective.
“However, the Government needs to go further and faster, in particular by enabling local areas to pool Levy contributions across local economies, so that employers can plan provision together more strategically for the good of the local area and residents.”
Notes to editors
In addition the LGA is calling for:
- An extension on the two year limit (from April 2017) to spend the Levy against key standards for local authority workforces, some of which have only just been approved or are still in development.
- The power for local areas to use the Levy more flexibly to recognise the full costs of apprenticeship programmes including on pre-apprenticeship training, so long as there is a final apprenticeship outcome.
- Local areas to retain the Levy underspend rather than handing it over to Whitehall.”