Chamber has joined forces with national training provider, Progress to Excellence, to raise awareness among levy-paying firms of the alternative ways that they can choose to spend their available funds

Wirral Chamber is looking to encourage businesses in the borough to make full use of the Apprenticeship Levy which is currently seeing an underspend.

It has joined forces with national training provider, Progress to Excellence, to raise awareness among levy-paying firms of the alternative ways that they can choose to spend their available funds.

Businesses can ‘gift’ up to 10% of their total levy value to support other Wirral organisations in training their teams via apprenticeships. For example, they may choose to work with a charity of their choice, a smaller business in their supply chain or any other Wirral employer that could benefit from a re-investment in training and development via apprenticeships.

A report published in April 2018 by the Open University, revealed there was £1.28bn in apprenticeship funds sitting unused. The same report went on to warn that if employers didn’t start to use these funds, they risked losing as much as £139m a month from April 2019.

In leading the way, Wirral will be the first borough nationally to highlight how larger companies can support the growth of smaller companies in the local area.

Charities for example, as non-levy payers, could benefit by receiving some funding from a larger Wirral based business to help fund a wide range of apprenticeship training. Apprenticeships are available in a wide range of sectors such as leadership and management, business administration and ICT.  

Levy payers will be able to decide who to ‘gift’ their under spent levy funds to. However, Wirral Chamber has undertaken a survey to gauge the requirements of non-levy payers in a bid to understand from local businesses and charities how and where this potential funding boost would make the biggest difference.

Patsy Crocker, executive director at Wirral Chamber, said: “Together with Progress to Excellence we are committed to ensuring that our business community can take advantage of this initiative and, as always, we will look to support their aspirations for growth through creating opportunities which will accelerate leadership and management skills to generate expansion.

To find out more about the initiative contact Patsy Crocker by emailing patsycrocker@wirralchamber.co.uk