Co-op Levy Share: working together to fund thousands of apprenticeships

by Apr 12, 2022Awards alumni, Awareness Raising, Campaigning, News, Our networks

On Tuesday 5 April, City & Guilds Foundation held an event in partnership with The Co-op discussing how large organisations with unspent apprenticeship levy can share funds with smaller businesses in need as part of their Levy Share initiative.

Aimed at businesses who may have a large enough levy pot to share, but also businesses who may not have enough levy for their own apprenticeship ambitions, the event provided advice on how to access levy funds and use them to realise apprenticeship and social mobility ambitions.

About the Co-op Levy Share

Princess Royal Training Awards alumni, The Co-op, have been working with employers to bring together funding to support thousands of apprenticeships via their levy share portal. The portal allows employers to pledge unused funds from their levy account, resulting in combined pledged funds for other businesses to access and pay for the cost of training and assessing their apprentices.

The Co-op’s ambition is that by 2023 the ‘opportunity gap’ in apprenticeships for individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds will be closed, but the portal is also intended to address underrepresentation in other areas.

An insightful and encouraging event

Packed with a whole host of speakers, the event was kicked off by Lauren Roberts, Advocacy Lead at City & Guilds, providing an update on the apprenticeship levy, followed by introductions from Sandra Kelly and Louise Timperly from The Co-op Levy Share Service. Tiana Locker, Apprenticeship Programme Manager at City & Guilds, then came on to discuss how the apprenticeship levy funds can be used to tackle inequality and underrepresentation in apprenticeships.

Representatives from Greencore, Autism Initiatives, Pertemps and William Hare were invited to share experiences of using the levy share portal to receive funding but also receiving apprenticeship training through means of portal.  The session was concluded with a Q&A where attendees were given the chance to direct any questions or queries to the speakers, but also share advice of their own on how best to take advantage of the Co-op levy share.

Insightful and encouraging, events like this empower organisations to best use the funding available to them to grow their network of apprentices, but also to think differently about how best to access different talent pools and attract people to work in their industries. City & Guilds Foundation would like to thank our speakers and those who attended this event.

Learn more about how to get involved

Watch the video below and learn how you can take full advantage of The Co-op’s apprenticeship online matching service: Co-op Levy Share

Jump directly to a specific part of the video:

See our events page or sign up to our email list below to find out about future events.

Want to be kept up to date?

Sign up to City & Guilds Foundation email alerts and newsletter

Previous posts

Human-Centered Leadership: Nurturing Creativity, Connection, and Collaboration

We attended Anthropy this month. The second edition of a gathering like no other, set in the beautiful Eden Project in Cornwall to bring together leading voices to imagine a better world. It’s no surprise that leadership was at the centre of conversations as a tool...

Big Idea Fund: Five new projects awarded funding to unlock potential and support rehabilitation

Back in June we announced that we were inviting expressions of interest for the second round of our Big Idea Fund. The £1m Big Idea Fund was established in 2019 as the first major initiative of our Foundation, to support prisoners with upskilling to aid their...

Neurodiversity Index 2024

Did you know that in the workplace, 40% of neurodivergent employees say they are impacted most days in the workplace by their condition and only 32% of employees felt that they can disclose their neurodivergent condition? These are some of the key findings from our...

Empowering women to enter the construction industry

According to the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) (2023), women represent only 15% of the construction workforce. At the same time, the construction industry is facing a skills shortage suggesting that this crucial source of talent is being under-utilised....

Making a real difference, and genuinely changing lives

I have always known that City & Guilds is a force for good – helping millions of people to access skills. And it’s no surprise really that for nearly 150 years our purpose has remained the same – to help people, organisations and economies to develop their skills...

Foundation & Friends Monthly Round-up: September 2023

As the final days of Summer gently give way to the crisp embrace of autumn here in the UK, we find ourselves at the threshold of another monthly roundup. We have loads of exciting events and opportunities lined up, so let’s dive right In.

Celebrating the impact of learning and development

At the heart of City & Guilds is our purpose which has skills development deep rooted in it. And through the Foundation one of our jobs is to celebrate where really great skills development is happening, and an example of how we do that is our Princess Royal...

Introducing the newly formed Young Learner Advisory Team

In a bold step towards ensuring that learners experience and perspectives are at the heart of key decision-making processes here at City & Guilds, we are pleased to introduce the newly formed Young Learner Advisory Team. This team will provide an ‘active voice’...

City & Guilds launches partnership with The Green Edge

We are excited to announce a new collaboration with sustainable business analysts, The Green Edge, to produce a bespoke podcast series, designed to help us respond to the latest developments in green skills markets.

Podcast episodes

Share This