Trade bodies call on Government to fix restrictive Apprenticeship Levy system
The British Retail Consortium has teamed up with three other trade bodies to demand that the government fix what it describes as the broken Apprenticeship Levy system.
The organisation has submitted a letter together with UK Hospitality, the Recruitment & Employment Confederation and TechUK to demand urgent reform of the system and has accused the government of “holding back investment” in training.
The trade bodies, which represent 10 million UK workers, say that £3.5 billion in levy funds have gone unused in a use-it-or-lose it scheme due to businesses being unable to meet “restrictive requirements” to draw from funds they had contributed to the scheme themselves in the first place.
BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson said: “The government must urgently fix the £3.5 billion mistake or it risks letting the UK’s anaemic productivity trail further behind its international counterparts.
“Retailers want to invest more in training in 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. Without reforms to the levy, retail will not be able to turbo-boost equipping its workforce for the future.”
