Employers’ our bodies have criticised immediately’s announcement that, from January 2026, the apprenticeship levy can not be used to fund new Stage 7 apprentices until they’re below 22.
Within the autumn, when scrapping Stage 7 apprenticeship funding was first mooted, NHS Employers wrote to the Division for Schooling, warning of the implications for the well being service.
This morning, Danny Mortimer, chief govt of NHS Employers, stated: “The NHS supplies one third of all apprenticeships within the public sector, reinvesting the levy it pays to the Exchequer in programmes throughout all areas of our workforce.
“There will likely be actual concern within the NHS on the ending of funding from the levy for Stage 7 apprenticeships for anybody aged over 21 – a route which has offered an more and more essential technique of funding in skilled medical employees to obtain training which helps superior follow in nursing and allied well being professions.”
NHS Employers had requested for an exemption for the “strategically very important {qualifications}” and stated there’s a fear that this resolution now creates a further monetary burden for the NHS.
“The forthcoming 10-year plan and related workforce plan will set out bold priorities to shift and rework healthcare,” he added. “This resolution dangers operating counter to those aspirations, and we sit up for the chancellor figuring out different methods to help this important training.”
Lizzie Crowley, senior abilities adviser on the CIPD, stated: “The choice to limit authorities funding for all Stage 7 apprenticeships to these aged 16 to 21 is unlikely to meaningfully enhance youth participation, on condition that fewer than one in 10 apprentices who prepare at this degree fall inside this age bracket.
“Whereas the purpose of rebalancing the system in direction of younger folks is essential, this blunt method dangers undermining the breadth and ambition of the apprenticeship provide. Now we have beforehand argued for a extra nuanced method to managing the price of delivering higher-level apprenticeships, as an example, by way of diminished subsidies for older apprentices.”
Senior management coaching
Petra Wilton, director of coverage on the Chartered Administration Institute, stated: “Whereas the choice to considerably minimize funding for Stage 7 apprenticeships stays a disappointment, the precedence now have to be to help the learners already enrolled or getting ready to begin programmes. These embrace folks in very important public providers such because the NHS, training and policing.
“The federal government’s resolution to limit Stage 7 funding to these below 21 doesn’t deal with the UK’s ongoing abilities hole in administration functionality.”
She stated that the choice wipes out nearly all funding for senior chief apprenticeships, and that early-career learners will not be on the stage of their working lives to undertake senior management coaching.
She added: “Unbiased analysis discovered that Stage 7 senior chief apprenticeships are a key driver of multi-million-pound financial progress and social mobility throughout the UK. They’re overrepresented by individuals who had been on free college meals and who had been the primary of their households to go to school. These elevate aspirations and provide tangible positive factors for hard-working households throughout the nation.
These adjustments, coupled with uncertainty over the implications for employers of the Employment Rights Invoice, growing prices to employers, and future UK visa constraints, imply that we have now important issues about this resolution limiting UK financial progress” – Alan Vallance, ICAEW
“We wish to work constructively with ministers to make sure the apprenticeship system and the broader abilities agenda can ship the higher-level abilities that UK employers inform us they desperately want. to develop the economic system.
“With Stage 7 funding now minimize, different routes should proceed to ship these superior abilities our economic system is dependent upon. Which means guaranteeing the Development and Abilities levy can flex to make sure that employees at all ages and stage of their working lives get an opportunity to enhance their abilities. The much-needed give attention to younger folks must go hand in hand with a dedication to the thousands and thousands of individuals already in work throughout the UK.”
Development and abilities levy
Recruitment and Employment Confederation chief govt Neil Carberry stated: “A higher focusing on of funds on youthful folks is crucial to guard their pathways into work, and provides higher stability and readability in apprenticeship coverage.
“But the adjustments introduced immediately don’t progress us on the true problem that has pushed down apprenticeship alternatives for younger employees which is the poor design of the apprenticeship levy.
“Fixing the levy with actual progress on a brand new Development and Abilities levy is an enormous activity however provides an enormous reward for folks and employers. Companies are more and more pissed off by the dearth of progress on this. A higher embrace of shorter, modular programs and collaboration with employers is the way in which to maximise the expertise on this nation, and is crucial for industries from healthcare to building.”
Alan Vallance, chief govt of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), agreed: “This resolution to scrap Stage 7 funding for folks aged over 21 will come as a serious blow to the hundreds who depend on this route into highly-skilled roles that help the broader economic system.”
Common age is 22
He defined that the common beginning age of a Stage 7 ICAEW apprentice is 22, and that the unintended penalties of a coverage that strips funding from this cohort will undoubtedly have a profound impression for companies, the talents pipeline and the well being of the broader economic system.
“Whereas we perceive and help the concept of an age concession, the seemingly impact of a 16-21 exemption is a skew in recruitment in direction of college leavers, who usually observe an extended pathway to qualification as a chartered accountant,” he stated.
“These adjustments, coupled with uncertainty over the implications for employers of the Employment Rights Invoice, growing prices to employers, and future UK visa constraints, imply that we have now important issues about this resolution limiting UK financial progress. Not solely will this impression the attractiveness of recruitment into the skilled providers, it runs the danger of UK companies selecting to offshore work.
“It additionally flies within the face of the federal government’s dedication to its progress agenda, particularly after it included skilled and enterprise providers as a key growth-driving sector within the new industrial technique. Abilities are crucial to the expansion prospects of companies and financial progress, and apprenticeships assist to shut that abilities hole – so that they have to be protected and enhanced in any respect prices.”
He stated the institute will work carefully with companies, apprentices and coaching suppliers to assist them navigate this era of change, and stay dedicated to an open dialogue with Abilities England and employers to make sure entry to expertise is protected.
“Nevertheless, our place stays that an age exemption of 18-25 could be an efficient compromise that helps the federal government’s wider goal for progress. We might urge the federal government to carefully monitor these adjustments by the lens of financial progress and rethink if they’ve been efficient in a yr’s time.”
Signal as much as our weekly round-up of HR information and steerage
Obtain the Personnel At this time Direct e-newsletter each Wednesday
