Over £2 billion of apprenticeship funding has been returned to the Treasury since the launch of the levy, FE Week obtained figures that show the true extent of apprenticeship underspend. The clawback equates to 23 per cent of the Department for Education’s total ring-fenced apprenticeship budget between 2017 and 2021. Tom Richmond, a former adviser to two skills ministers and now director of think tank EDSK, said, “Now that we can see the scale of the underspend, it raises important questions about why the levy funding has not been fully utilised, particularly when there is still a cap on the number of apprenticeship starts in small and medium-sized businesses.” See the full FE Week article here.
