Accessing money for training
Once you have paid the levy to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) you will be able to access funding for apprenticeships through a new digital apprenticeship service account. You will be able to use this to pay for training and assessment for apprentices in England.
Separate arrangements will be in place in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Creating an account to access your funds
Online tools for employers will be available via the digital apprenticeship service over the next year. You will be able to register to create your account from January 2017 and you’ll be able to familiarise yourself with the service.
Levy-paying employers will be able to use the service to pay for the training and assessment of apprentices from April 2017. When you’ve registered, you’ll need to verify your PAYE schemes and link them to your account. You will be able to use more than one account if you’d like to keep your schemes separate.
When funds will appear in your digital account
You will be able to see funds appear in your digital account monthly, a few working days after you have confirmed your pay bill and levy contribution to HRMC for the previous month. This means that the first time you will see any funds in your digital account will be late May 2017.
Employers who operate in England and other parts of the UK
The levy will apply to employers across the UK. The amount entering your digital apprenticeship service account will be how much you have available to spend on apprenticeship training in England.
Apprenticeships are a devolved policy, which means that authorities in each of the UK nations manage their own apprenticeship programmes, including how funding is spent on apprenticeship training. The digital apprenticeship service will support the English apprenticeship system. Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland have their own arrangements for supporting employers to access apprenticeships.
Top-ups to the funds in your digital account
The Government will apply a 10% top-up to the funds you have for spending on apprenticeship training in England.
They will apply the top-up monthly, at the same time the funds enter your digital account. That means for every £1 that enters your digital account to spend in England on apprenticeship training, you get £1.10.
Expiry of funds in your digital account
Funds will expire 18 months after they enter your digital account unless you spend them on apprenticeship training. This will also apply to any top-ups in your digital account. For example, funds entering your account in September 2017 will expire in March 2019, unless you have spent them. Money is spent when it leaves your digital account as a payment to us.
The account will work on a first-in, first-out basis, through either payment or expiry. Whenever a payment is taken from your digital account it will automatically use the funds that entered your account first. This will minimise the amount of expired funds.
This will happen automatically. Your digital account will let you know in good time when any funds are due to expire so that you can arrange to spend them if you wish.