Businesses in Ealing now can benefit from applying for the council’s apprenticeship levy funding so they can train new apprentices through the apprenticeship levy business support scheme.

What is the apprenticeship levy?

Since 2017, employers with an annual paybill of £3 million or more pay 0.5% as an apprenticeship levy. This goes into funding that can be used to pay for apprenticeship training. Where there is unspent levy funding, employers can ‘gift’ levy funding to other businesses so they can benefit from having apprentices. The levy funding can only be paid for approved training rather than salaries.

What is an apprenticeship?

An apprenticeship is a paid job that also includes training, normally delivered by an independent training provider or college.

How can you benefit?

As an employer, Ealing Council pays into the apprenticeship levy. The council wants to share unspent levy funding with businesses that do not have their own levy funding or have already spent their levy contribution for that year so they can use it for apprenticeship training.

Councillor Bassam Mahfouz, cabinet member for decent living incomes comments:

“As outlined in our Plan for Good Jobs, the council is committed to help our Ealing residents find good jobs on decent living incomes, and supporting businesses to thrive.

“We are currently supporting our local businesses by bringing them free business support programmes and one-off grants to those in the hospitality, leisure and accommodation sector, affected by the Omicron variant.

“We are thrilled to be able to help businesses even further by transferring council’s unspent levy funding so it can be spent by local employers who want to benefit from having apprentices.

“I’d encourage local businesses to submit an application or contact our team for more information.”

What businesses are eligible?

We want to hear from businesses that are interested in employing new apprentices, increase the number of apprentices they already have or want to upskill their existing staff.

To apply for the apprenticeship levy business support scheme, your business needs to:

• Be based in Ealing, doing significant business in Ealing or will employ local residents as apprentices
• Confirm that you will pay the salary of the apprentice as the levy funding can only be used for apprenticeship training
• Confirm that the apprenticeship is new and not yet started as funding cannot be awarded retrospectively
• Employ your apprentice for a minimum of 30 hours per week or less where this complies with apprenticeship funding rules
• Allow the apprentice to have the required 20% of their time for their off-the-job training as part of an approved apprenticeship standard
• Confirm that your levy funding has been used for the year, if you already pay into the levy and have spent your funding
• Have your own apprenticeship digital account.

Consideration will be made to businesses on a case by case basis in relation to pay, sector and conditions offered.

Join a webinar

You can also join Apprenticeship levy funding for employers – a free webinar on 1 March 2022 from 11am to 12pm. Learn more about apprenticeships, how they can benefit your business and how to access our apprenticeship levy funding to pay for the training. We are working with the London Progression Collaboration who have helped employers hire over 750 apprenticeships since they started in 2019.

How do businesses apply?

Request an application form by emailing apprenticeships@ealing.gov.uk or calling us on 020 8825 6234. Lines are open Monday to Friday 9am-3pm. If the line is busy, please leave us a message and we will get back to you.