Retailers, hospitality businesses, the tech industry and recruiters have called for urgent reform of the apprenticeship levy, calling it a “£3.5bn mistake”.
In a letter sent to ministers, the British Retail Consortium (BRC), UKHospitality, techUK, and the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) said the government was “holding back investment” in critical training that could increase productivity, fuel economic growth and raise wages.
Helen Dickinson, the chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, which represents most major retailers, said: “The government must urgently fix this £3.5bn mistake, or it risks letting the UK’s anaemic productivity trail further behind its international counterparts.
“Retailers want to invest more in training a higher skilled, more productive and better-paid workforce. They want to create more opportunities for people up and down the country. They want to contribute more to growth. But the broken apprenticeship system is a ball and chain around their efforts.”
Under the current system firms contribute hundreds of millions of pounds into a pot, which can be spent only on very specific types of training. For example, businesses cannot use the money to fund any courses that are shorter than one year in duration. They say this has left them unable to spend £3.5bn of funds set aside.
Introduced in April 2017, the apprenticeship levy makes large organisations set aside 0.5% of their payroll for apprenticeships.
