The Department for Education is set to hand back £60 million of apprenticeship funding to the Treasury in 2023-24, new figures show.
Of the department’s £2.585 billion ring-fenced apprenticeship budget this financial year, £2.525 billion, or 98 per cent, is expected to be spent.
The figures, released this week in the Treasury’s supplementary estimates, would mark a slight drop in the underspend recorded in 2022-23, when £96 million, or four per cent, of England’s ring-fenced apprenticeships budget went unused.
The budget is set to rise to £2.7 billion from 2024-25. However, the disparity in what is distributed by the Treasury for public spending on apprenticeships compared to how much the levy is generating continues to grow.
