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:
- Welcome and introductions, Lauren Roberts, City & Guilds Foundation
- Apprenticeship Levy – The Basics, Paula Gibson, City & Guilds
- Tackling inequality and underrepresentation in apprenticeships, Tiana Locker, City & Guilds
- Co-op Levy Share service, Louise Timperley & Sandra Kelly, Co-op
- Experience using the platform: Greencore / Autism Initiatives
- Experience using the platform: Pertemps / William Hare
- Questions & Answers
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