{"id":15545,"date":"2017-05-03T16:01:22","date_gmt":"2017-05-03T15:01:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ihbconline.co.uk\/newsachive\/?p=15545"},"modified":"2017-05-02T10:36:20","modified_gmt":"2017-05-02T09:36:20","slug":"opinion-the-apprenticeship-levy-is-an-opportunity-for-businesses-to-improve-we-shouldnt-waste-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=15545","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: The Apprenticeship Levy is an opportunity for businesses to improve &#8211; we shouldn&#8217;t waste it"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>The Apprenticeship Levy came into force on 6 April, and the <em>Telegraph<\/em>\u2019s Steve Hill argues that we need to take full advantage of the UK Government\u2019s initiative \u2018to ensure larger organisations get serious about apprenticeship programmes\u2019.<\/h3>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The <em>Telegraph<\/em> writes:<\/p>\n<p>In 2015, the UK Government committed to creating three million new apprenticeships by 2020. The development and delivery of degree-level apprenticeships is seen as a key part of this policy reform. And to fund this initiative, organisations with a turnover of \u00a33 million or more will have to spend 0.5% of their annual wage bill on the apprenticeship levy.\u00a0 Employers are now highly incentivised to hire apprentices and the savvy ones will seize the opportunity to identify and address skill gaps they have now and in the future \u2013 putting them in the best position to deal with changing environments \u2013 and essentially gain real business benefits. While those that see the levy as just another tax will ultimately lose out.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026\u00a0 And the skills gap is not an issue that is going to just go away \u2013 particularly in a post-Brexit Britain \u2013 unless decisive action is taken by organisations. The need for investment in skills development will be even more urgent for a UK that is outside of the EU. \u00a0With major skills shortages in industries such as construction, engineering, and IT, we are relying on EU workers to plug the gaps that are in short supply. Furthermore, EU workers are making a big contribution to the healthcare sector (11% of all NHS staff are not British) \u2013 employers may see a shrinking talent pool that exacerbates the skills gaps that already exist in the economy\u2026.<\/p>\n<p>If it wasn\u2019t before, the call to action is now loud and clear &#8211; business leaders need to take notice and consider how they can invest more in training their workers.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/education\/2017\/04\/13\/apprenticeship-levy-opportunity-businesses-improve-shouldnt\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Read more&#8230;.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Apprenticeship Levy came into force on 6 April, and the Telegraph\u2019s Steve Hill argues that we need to take full advantage of the UK Government\u2019s initiative \u2018to ensure larger organisations get serious about apprenticeship programmes\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sector-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15545"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15546,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15545\/revisions\/15546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}