What can a University learn from Apprenticeship Levy?

Editor's Notes

• #3: Will start by describing this session to you EEIF - The AL is probably none of these things but this session will be – that is what AUA say on their Conference Programme With that in mind: You will see we have: A Big Barometer – on which we would like you to mark your assessment of your institution’s agility. Not referring to the openness to new ideas/creative blue sky thinking, planning etc .(all HEI’s think they are great at that). A pencil and paper - We are talking about agility – this is an opportunity for you to ‘turn over the stone’ and look underneath – how ‘able’/ how agile are your systems, processes and people? The most efficient way of implementing the Apprenticeship Levy successfully is to know your strengths and weaknesses and to have taken them into account from the outset. You may want to reflect on ‘creative bleaching’ which is where…….
• #4: What are we doing in this session? We are going to talk about agility – what does it mean? Context is important but here – Agility is the ability to change direction, quickly in response to changes in direction. In the last 10 years HE has discussed ways of diversifying the income stream + achieving growth to meet decline in recruitment – for example, international partnerships. The AL is an opportunity to grow numbers or to at least ‘stand still’ but it does require changes to approach and processes. We are going to look at the challenges that have emerged so far, learn from them and this is (hopefully): Going to help YOU understand the challenges you and your colleagues have face - in responding Quickly to the opportunity and driving forward the App levy in your University. To start with a generalised position - we work with a number of Unis and the issues appear to be universal – the challenges we will look at - but the Uni’s agility and ‘readiness’ for change differs in each University. We have framed this workshop as helping you identify your steps to success - hopefully our discussion will draw these out. Talk about themes and you can fill in the blanks (privately or openly – we would like you to discuss them if you feel able. Emphasis on interactive..) Where are you now? – barometer? Now, before we look at steps to success…..
• #5: Essential skills for working in a University? Agility – maybe. This image demonstrates that successful agility can become a by-word for multi-tasking – if the man stops pedalling ….?
• #6: Agility – certainly but lets not lose sight of the fact it’s a team event. T Hopefully, this image demonstrates that. Also, it reminds us that successful agility goes hand in hand with a plan and consistency – you and your colleagues need to work as a successful team on a cross – institution initiative with AGILITY and CONSISTENCY re quality. For that reason we want you to think about who you are going to need to target after this session to deliver.
• #8: You will need to pay the apprenticeship levy if you are an employer, in any sector, with a pay bill of more than £3 million each year. For the purposes of the levy, an ‘employer’ is someone who is a secondary contributor, with liability to pay Class 1 secondary National Insurance contributions (NICs) for their employees. The levy will be charged at a rate of 0.5% of your annual pay bill. You will have a levy allowance of £15,000 per year to offset against the levy you must pay. This means you will only pay the levy if your pay bill exceeds £3 million in a given year. You will pay the levy to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) through the Pay as You Earn (PAYE) process. Your pay bill will be based on the total amount of earnings subject to Class 1 secondary NICs. Although earnings below the secondary threshold are not counted when calculating an employer’s NICs, they will be included for the purposes of calculating the amount of levy the employer needs to pay. Earnings include any remuneration or profit coming from employment, such as wages, bonuses, commissions, and pension contributions that you pay NICs on. We will not charge the levy on other payments such as benefits in kind, subject to Class 1A NICs. You will pay the levy on your entire pay bill at a rate of 0.5%. However, you will have a levy allowance to offset against this. The levy allowance is worth £15,000 for each tax year. This means the levy is only payable on pay bills over £3 million (because 0.5% x £3 million = £15,000). The levy allowance will operate on a monthly basis and will accumulate throughout the year. This means you will have an allowance of £1,250 a month. Any unused allowance will be carried from one month to the next. For example, if your levy liability in month 1 is £1,000 you will not pay the levy and your allowance in month 2 will be £1,500. If you have some unused allowance in a month, but paid the levy previously in the tax year, you can receive a credit which you can use to offset against your other PAYE liabilities. The credit will also reduce the amount of levy paid. If you have multiple PAYE schemes and do not use the full £15,000 allowance, you will be able to offset the unused amount against another one of your schemes once the tax year has ended. This means that in the first year of the new system, levied employers will not be able to transfer digital funds to pay for training of apprentices employed by ATAs. Employers that want to use their digital funds for training will only be able to do so for individuals in their direct employment.
• #9: You will calculate, report and pay your levy to HMRC, through the PAYE process alongside tax and NICs. If you have calculated that you will pay the apprenticeship levy, you will need to declare this and include it in your usual PAYE payment to HMRC by the 19th (or 22nd if you report electronically) of the following month. The first submission in which you will declare that you will pay the levy will therefore be in May. 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. The apprenticeship levy will be introduced on 6 April 2017. The first time eligible employers will have to declare their liability to HMRC will be in May 2017 for levy due on their April payroll. Levy-paying employers will be able to see corresponding funds in their digital accounts shortly after their final declaration to HMRC, so after 22 May. The new system for funding apprenticeships comes into effect from 1 May 2017. Any apprenticeships started from this date will be funded according to the new rules. Until this date, the funding system in place for frameworks and standards will continue to operate.
• #10: From May 2017, if you pay the levy you will also be able to: see the funds you have available to spend in England set the price you’ve agreed with your training provider pay for apprenticeship training and assessment through the digital apprenticeship service Latest suggestion is cannot draw down on digital vouchers until May 2017
• #11: Govt targets for apprenticeships by 2020 and funding and shift from BiS to D of Ed They need to be paid for! Ref previous funding model – “free” if under 19 and 50% if 19+ and under 25 – complete volte face re funding of apprenticeships and the target age range for apprenticeships which was emphasised due to the funding rules. The Government has committed to creating three million new apprenticeships in this Parliament, with two primary measures to achieve this ambition. Click here for further details on the Government’s apprenticeship ambition. Enterprise Act will give Ministers the power to set public sector organisations, including local authorities, with 250 staff or more an apprenticeship recruitment target of 2.3 percent of the workforce headcount per year. The consultation on targets for the PS has now closed. Weightmans contributed and co-ordinated client responses to this consultation. No outcomes publiched yet.
• #12: We need a basic understanding of the AL. Lets just quickly remind ourselves of why Universities are involved in the AL. 1. In basic terms the Levy represents a shift to work based learning funded by the employer and the government. 2. The drivers for it are already in place. AL commences April 2017. Government target, Public sector target therefore the external drivers are there. 3. The challenge for HE is being ready and able to deliver.
• #13: Now we can start our steps to success. 1. Start with strategic goals – look at who you’ve got to deliver it, construct teams and buy in expertise you need. An opening question – how many of you have a Strategy for your approach to the App Levy? How many of you have been members of a working group to implement toe App levy in your institution? 2. There are 2 aspects to this. In the Uni – and in the business community The direction your Uni wants to take on this This is a euphemism for thorny and legal issues to flag
• #14: The range of courses approved for Apprenticeship is growing as more Trailblazers get approved [ give examples]. One particular challenge is the Rules for Standards App starting May 2017 require the learning to be mapped out at the outset of the Apprenticeship. specifies what the app student will be studying, who is delivering it, how this will be assessed, [ etc…]. This is all part of the Curriculum Statement is a key part of the 3 way contract between the Uni the employer and the student . Are academic programme leaders being trained on mapping the existing curriculum in this way? We can anticipate any curriculum development is likely to take months if not an academic year? 2. Employers may want students to enrol more than once a year. A further challenge is the assessment process and ensuring this reflects employers requirements – how many intakes can the Uni accept? Can the progress be tracked by the current student systems? Does this represent another layer of work that needs resourcing? 3. Another challenge that has emerged from the C Statement is that some elements are delivered by the employer and University's have found the employers don’t know how to support the student. This has meant Uni resources are required to provide that support to employers. There has been an incidental benefit to managers form the employer – who are learning mentoring skills as part of the delivery. Each App must have a work based Mentor in place. Some Universities are now delivering annual workshops for mentors. As administrators you may be considering: Are there efficiencies to be made? Is there an opportunity for a University to cross-sell? Who is looking at this? Perhaps to discuss L&D Plans with employers and to look at the potentials for cross-selling e.g. CPD to complement the Apprenticeships, as these relationships develop. How is your Uni addressing the employer engagement in this new context – does this need review? Another obvious opportunity for Unis is to build feeder routes into PG – how many people would be interested in Level 7 i.e PhD if the funding was available through our employer? In simple terms – the Unis need to work with employers on Trailblazer groups to develop Level 7 courses. In practice the problem is the employers need the students before they can identify what knowledge and skills they require – problem for the Uni’s is this is not the employers areas of expertise. Unis need to develop this capacity and support employers in new ways – how are you going to do that? App students will be challenged to address work based problems as part of the course and will benefit from the expertise of academics. One challenge for Universities will be to maximise opportunities for joint working and research. Does the research strategy need reviewing? With all this in mind- what are the main issues you can foresee? And - WHO do you need to influence to start to address it?
• #15: 1. employer levy payers are going to pay and use or pay and lose (after 18 months) 2. As we have already seen the AL sees HE and local businesses working closely together in a way they have not done before. Unis are hosting recruitment campaigns with employers – recruiting new apprentices and jointly assessing applicants. Are you marketing and admissions teams engaged in attracting this market. 3. Employers will also be looking at using the App L for existing staff. As you also know, the decrease in younger workers (by 2035 we know 8.5% increase in 15-29 year olds and a 7.5% increase in 30-44 years olds; by contrast, there will be a 30% increase in 60-74 year olds and an 82% increase in those over 75 years of age). This means a greater emphasis on training for mature workers. In terms of accessing facilities and materials - Are the requirements of students and employers being anticipated and met – who is doing this? 4. One of the challenges for Uni’s has been the ‘slow down’ in employers response to the AL opportunity arising mainly over the uncertainty over Brexit. This has been very frustrating who have invested in Outreach and Open events to find the vacancies are not coming through. Prime time for vacancies is March to June, but it seems in some large employers the decisions are stuck at Board level. 5. The projects app students are involved in are employer focused – employer gets the benefit of Uni expertise. RKT 6. This is going to depend on whether you are already actively engaged in Apps. If you are not then clearly you need to think about who the key people are who will enable you to start. If you have already started and are looking to expand, invest, then you need to think about the areas where you are under resourced and what is required.
• #16: Develop Consortia with other educators – FE, specialists to deliver a package to employers. This is attractive to employer sand it builds confidence because they can see a career route through. You need the right people from the Uni getting involved in this process – who are those people and what is happening on this? Another part of this particular challenge e.g. with the NHS is to protect your placements for competitors. You need to think strategically about how you propose to tie-in your relationship and protect your ability to send non App Levy students to the NHS employer for placements. What can you offer as an incentive? Procurement rules – Uni are now selling App to employers. Large public sector employers will have procurement requirements and the ITT and bid process needs to e undertaken – NHS portal opened end March 2017 – who is leading on this? Once you have an App programme in place think about diversifying –e.g. chartered management, look at your strengths and where the Uni can offer specialist pathways such as a management programme for sectors e.g. health, engineering, retail, sport etc. Who is leading on this discussion? It is entirely possible the App Levy may replace Graduate student recruitment – who is planning for this? Is it on the University risk Register? Who do you need to raise this with?
• #17: Are the finance team up to date with the reporting requirements (monthly) rather than twice a year with HEFCE? Due diligence – important part of starting a relationship with an employer (reputational issues) who is overseeing this? Are there any thresholds you want to put in place to manage quality? E.g. minimum salary requirements? Think about the staff engaging with the business community in the context of a deeper/denser relationship than in the past – who is negotiating on behalf of the University? Do the Uni staff understand the lines of engagement – particularly around any changes that may arise proposed to the arrangement? Has training been provided? 4. Are the staff and TU’s on board? One response to 2 year degrees has been