Bolton Council: Claims £1.7m in Apprenticeship Levy unspent

The Apprenticeship Levy was a scheme introduced in 2017 which allows councils to pay money to the government which they then receive back in vouchers to spend on apprenticeship schemes.

In Bolton, opposition leaders say that since 2019 the council has returned around £1.7m worth of these vouchers unspent back to Whitehall, while supporters say that they have had no option but to return the vouchers because of the cost of employing so many apprentices.

Labour group leader Cllr Nick Peel said: “At a time when council finances are struggling so much, it is completely unacceptable that we should be voluntarily passing back our own cash to the government because we couldn’t spend it.

Cllr Nick Peel has asked why £1.7million appears to have gone unspent (Image: Bolton Council)

“The Apprenticeship Levy is a good scheme but is council funded.

“This means we have to pay the government this money, so that young people in our borough are given new work and career opportunities.

“Therefore, it is essential that Bolton spends every penny of the vouchers that our cash has already paid for.”

The details emerged about the amount spent on the scheme after a recent discussion at a council scrutiny committee meeting.

So far, a total of around £4.6m has been paid by the council to the government, which has created more than 250 apprenticeships and work experience roles for youngsters with the authority.

Council officials argue that this is the limit that the authority has been able to create, as a living wage employer.

But Cllr Peel has argued this could have been higher still if not for the extra £1.7m that was returned unspent.

He said: “When the council returns nearly £2m worth of vouchers, they not only let down the council taxpayers of our borough, they also let down our next generation who desperately need to benefit from this.

“The levy has helped 250 young people over five years, which is great, but there could have been another 100 helped had the council been on the ball.”

But the council has said that the law requires them to spend a certain amount of their bill on the levy scheme and that if they used the full amount of vouchers it would be impossible for them to then cover all of the wages.

A spokesperson for the authority said: “Bolton Council is fully committed to developing apprentices and creating new opportunities across the organisation.

“Like all employers over a certain size, we are legally required to contribute 0.5 per cent of our pay bill to the levy scheme.

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“This money is held centrally by government and can only be used to pay for training courses, not to cover staff wages.

“We pay all our apprentices a living wage and only create apprenticeship opportunities from existing vacances to increase the chance of placements resulting in permanent employment.

“If the full levy amount was used, it would not be possible for the council to cover the wages or convert each placement into a secure long-term career.”