GLP Training The Digital Apprenticeship Service Employer Guidance

The digital age Meeting the needs of people in changing environment Offer a tailored service Provide greater control to users Greater levels of engagement The way that government meets the needs of citizens, employers and providers is changing. We need to meet those needs by providing relevant and easy to access information on demand. By using digital channels they allow us to reach more people, tailor our offering and provide self-serve functionality, giving greater control to the user. We benefit from the automation of processes, a more informed user base and greater levels of engagement. We can also do things that we couldn’t do before, like a levy where employers can get back what they paid in. Can you imagine doing this on a paper-based system?

140 370 Research Overview 2000 170 Research overview interviews survey responses 170 survey responses Employers interviews Providers Also consulted: Chambers of Commerce ATAs Sector Skills Councils LEPs HMRC NHS Research and feedback is at the heart of the digital apprenticeship service development and design. All elements of the service have been extensively tested with a wide range of employers and providers as well as key stakeholders and intermediaries. Up to August 2016, we have conducted over 370 interviews with employers and 140 interviews with providers, user research and feedback sessions have been taking place since Christmas 2014. Generally one to one interviews have lasted between 45 mins to 2.5 hours. We will continue to develop the service further through our research to make sure the service meets the needs of all users. Figures to August 2016

What is the digital apprenticeship service? The digital apprenticeship service is an online digital interface and will be the mechanism to facilitate developing and managing your apprenticeship programmes. It is primarily aimed at employers and has been designed to enable you to have greater control of your programme and apprenticeship funding through the levy. The core service includes various elements of functionality that can be accessed at the different stages of an employers journey – from step 1 planning your programme through to starting an apprenticeship contract with a training provider in step 5. Employers who don’t pay the levy will not need to use the digital apprenticeship service to pay for apprenticeship training and assessment until at least 2018. When we ask them to start using the digital apprenticeship service to pay for apprenticeship training, we will help them to prepare. However, non levy payers can still benefit from features of the digital apprenticeship service through using the Find Apprenticeship Training and Recruit an Apprentice tools.

What is the digital apprenticeship service? The digital apprenticeship service is made up of several projects: The Digital Apprenticeship Service programme Find an apprenticeship Find apprenticeship training Recruit an apprentice Access my levy (Live) Find assessment organisations Find a standard or framework Find a training provider For training providers For employers Register Pay my provider The digital apprenticeship service is made up of several projects that have been extensively tested with employers and providers. Find an apprenticeship – is already live on GOV.UK and enables apprentices to search and apply for apprenticeship vacancies in England. Find Apprenticeship Training – will give employers easy to digest information on the choices available to them. Employers will easily be able to search for and find a standard, framework and training provider, as well as comparing one provider with another. Recruit an apprentice - is a new platform for training providers enabling them to post vacancies and manage applications for apprenticeships and traineeships. This will be opened up to employers at a later date. Access my levy – will enable registered levy paying employers to manage their funding and apprentices, view their levy balance, forecast and plan their spending. As well as paying training providers through their online account. Private BETA testing commenced in October, with a public BETA version of this available from January 2016. The areas highlighted in green are already live and available to use. Those in blue are currently in development. Provider readiness Employer readiness

Digital Apprenticeship Service Screenshots from the development system. Subject to change following user research. Before we show you all the elements that make up the digital apprenticeship service we need to make you aware that a lot of the screenshots that you will see have been taken from the development system and are not the final product. They are all subject to change as we tailor the service following our user research and development processes.

Plan, find and advertise your apprenticeship Planning is essential whether you are a levy or non levy paying employer. Businesses need to know what apprenticeship is right for their business and how much it may cost. The tools that have been created on GOV.UK will support employers through this process, from estimating an employers funding Finding the most appropriate apprenticeship standard Finding a training provider to deliver the training And advertising and recruiting your apprentice First I will now cover how employers can estimate their apprenticeship funding

Estimate my apprenticeship funding will allow employers to calculate whether they will pay the apprenticeship levy or not, and how much an employer will have available to spend on apprenticeships. It will also show how much the government will contribute towards the cost of training. To use this tool employers will need to know their organisations annual UK payroll as it will be needed on the next page. It will also be useful to know the percentage of the workforce that live in England and the type of apprenticeships they will need. Once an employer is ready they can click start to continue.

An employer will enter their organisation’s annual paybill for the whole UK and click save and continue.

What is the digital apprenticeship service? To help with the English levy calculations we will need to understand what percentage of this payroll is made up from employees living in England. Only levy funds relating to the English proportion will be available to spend through the digital apprenticeship service. An employer would enter this as a percentage in the box provided. If they are unsure, then they would enter 100% and click save and continue.

What is the digital apprenticeship service? If an employer knows what apprenticeship training they would like to fund they can select it from a drop down menu, as well as the number of apprentices and a start date. The example given shows three apprentices in boatbuilding, at level, using the highest funding banding available, £27,000 per apprentice. This gives a combined total of £81,000 which is payable over the 48 month duration of the apprenticeships – please note that funding brackets are not yet confirmed, this is just an example. An employer could skip this step and move straight to the detailed estimate.

What is the digital apprenticeship service? On the next page the employer will be presented with a monthly funding breakdown. The breakdown includes those levy credits coming into the digital account, including any government top ups, as well as the estimated monthly cost of the training. It will also show the values of any co-investments that an employer maybe required to pay as well as the governments 90% share. This example shows an employer who pays a monthly levy of £41,346. The company is spending £180,000 per month on apprenticeship training. The employer first uses their full levy amount of £41,346, leaving £138,654 to pay. Of the £138,654, the government will fund 90% and the employer 10%. This means that the employer is contributing an extra £13,865 per month with the government paying an additional £124,789. Except in the very first month where May’s levy went unspent. This was accumulated and added to June’s levy, which explains the slightly lower co-investment figures for June as the employer had more levy funds available than they usually would. Once businesses have estimated their apprenticeship funding, they can then move on to find apprenticeship training.

Find apps training Find apprenticeship training is an easy to use online tool that allows employers to find the right type of apprenticeship training and training providers for their business. Once on the website on GOV.UK employers can begin the search by clicking start.

Here an employer has the facility to search by job role or keyword. If they do not know the full name of the apprenticeship they are looking for, the search function will accept phases such as ‘accountant’ or other generic words to search on. In this example we are looking to employ a business administrator so have entered the general phase business.

After searching for ‘business’, the results are displayed After searching for ‘business’, the results are displayed. There is the option to further filter the results based on the level, with an explanation of each level appearing on screen. The results can also be sorted by best matched or level. It’s worth noting results labelled New are apprenticeship standards developed by employer groups, and that new standards are being added to the system all the time. Clicking on the title of the apprenticeship provides further details and we have selected the top result.

Each standard has a detailed summary available Each standard has a detailed summary available. This provides key information on: The training name and a summary of what is involved The level of the apprenticeship and the qualifications involved The job roles that the training is designed for The typical duration Any entry requirements Once the right apprenticeship training have been found then it’s possible to search for a training provider, using the green button in the top right hand corner.

The search facility enables an employer to enter the postcode of the future apprentice’s workplace. Once a postcode is entered click search to bring up the results. The results that will be detailed are of training providers who currently offer apprenticeships and can be selected today. It will be updated in 2017 to reflect the new register of apprenticeship training providers.

Results are ordered by the distance from the searched postcode. In the example on screen, an employer based in Coventry was searching for a training provider to deliver Level 3 Business and Administration, has found 176 suitable providers. It is then possible to filter results by training options – so day release, block release or delivery at your premises. There is also the option to just show those training providers that can deliver the training nationally and not just within a particular geographical defined area. Further details on each provider are available behind each link - including achievement rates, contact details and more about who they are.

Recruit an apprentice has replaced the older apprenticeship vacancies (AV) website which some employers will be familiar with. This service is for registered training providers (including large employers with direct grant funding) to post vacancies and manage applications for apprenticeships and traineeships. Once an employer has selected their training provider as shown previously, the provider will be able to use recruit an apprentice to advertise the vacancy for the employer. This part of the service is live, along with the candidate search and application service called find an apprenticeship. Employers will be able to advertise and manage their own vacancies at a later date. There are further resources to support employers with their apprenticeship recruitment on GOV.UK There would be no need to use this service if you have already identified your apprentice or are putting an existing staff member through an apprenticeship.

The service is free to use and enables providers to manage all of their apprenticeship vacancies in one place, feeding back to employers on the current status of each vacancy. Providers will are able to draft vacancies and advertise them on the live system. Once they receive applications they can review them with the employer and invite potential apprentices to interview all through the system. As with previous version of the recruitment site, employers and providers will be able to refer apprentices to their own website should they want to use their own recruitment portals. We have built in data validation features to ensure advertisements fall in line with SFA quality measures, all advertisements receive a final check by the SFA before they are made live to the public.

Some of you may have seen and used ‘find an apprenticeship’ – it’s like a jobsearch website for apprentices and is the website used to advertise an employers vacancy. It’s easy to find on GOV.UK and enables candidates to search for all apprenticeship vacancies. They also have the ability to create a secure online account so they can apply for vacancies.

AV – advertise vacancy The search function for candidates is very easy to use. It allows them to search by a keyword, enter a postcode, town or city and add filters by distance and level.

Search results are displayed to the candidate giving them the ability to filter results further. Each vacancy has some key information clearly displayed, including: The job title Who the employer is When the vacancy was added A summary of the job Distance from the search postcode, including a map A closing date And finally, the possible start date The candidate will then open a vacancy to find out further details.

Candidates are then given the full information about the vacancy and can apply for the positon. To do this they will need to create a user account if they haven’t already got one. The application will be sent to the provider via recruit an apprentice. If the apprentice is successful they will start their apprenticeship with the employer. At this stage, if you are a non levy paying employer, you will have found a training provider and training course, and then recruited your apprentice. Non-levy employers will not need to use the rest of the service, as funding will be paid via your provider.

Accessing a digital account This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience Accessing a digital account Levy paying employers will need to use Access my levy, which is the working title, to manage their levy. Access my levy is designed to give employers greater control of their apprenticeship programme and apprenticeship funding. By creating a digital account levy paying employers will be able to manage their vouchers and apprentices, view their balance, forecast and plan their spending and pay training providers.

Government Gateway ID This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience Government gateway ID Link PAYE schemes Plan and map When an employer first logs onto the system they will need to create an account. As the levy is linked to an employers HMRC payroll declarations they will need their businesses Government Gateway ID to set up an account. It is likely that the business’s payroll team have access to the government gateway ID as it is used when submitting PAYE information to HMRC. It is vitally important to get this right so we encourage everyone to have their gateway ID ready before starting the process. Further support on the Government Gateway ID is available at gateway.gov.uk The Gateway ID is used to identify those PAYE schemes that are connected and relate to the employer. An employer can then select which PAYE scheme or schemes they want to attach and link to the digital account. It’s advisable that employers identify all of their PAYE schemes before they start this process and map out which schemes they are planning to link to which account. HMRC have launched a technical consultation around the calculation, reporting and payments of the levy. This is available on .GOV.UK and closes on the 14 November. We cannot advise on tax related issues and employers must go to HMRC for support and advice. We would recommend that all levy paying employers read the proposals and submit comments if required.

This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience Once an employer has gone thought the set up process, or signed in, they will arrive at the Access my levy home screen. When employers are at their home screen they have access to a number of defined areas. Different functions and roles within the organisation may require information from selected areas. Funding - this may be of particular interest to the finance department. This section offers the facility to manage your funds, view the amount of funds available and committed, identify any funds that may be nearing its 24 month expiry and also view any transactions that have been from your account. The apprentices and Find training sections give employers the opportunity to view information on individual apprentices already in post or to recruit further. The training tool allows employers to search for apprenticeship training and providers. Employers are able to save searches for ease and future use. The Team function allows employers to manage the users that they set up and grant additional user’s access to the account and to set individual user privileges.   On the right hand side of the page, there are a number of ‘to do’ quick links to key areas of information within the website. Users are able to quickly and easily see any new applications made for their apprenticeship vacancies and calculate any available spend. I will now cover the funding and apprentice sections in more detail.

This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience Funding slide This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience The funding screen offers employers a number of different options. They can forecast their funds, view transactions, look at the English percentage, view funds that could be expiring and view their committed spending. Finally, they have the ability to download their financial information for their records. Employers can estimate their funding, as we did this earlier in the presentation I will move on to view your transactions. From research we have conducted, employers said that having the ability to view a transaction statement of their account was a high priority. View your transactions provides employers with a breakdown of their incomes and expenditures in their digital account.

This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience The figures that are displayed on screen do not add up, they are for illustration purposes as the site is developed. It shows a company with a current account balance of £5,340.   Below there is a transaction statement, similar to a bank statement that details the credits and debits on the account. The system shows a date for each transaction, gives a description of the debit or credit and the running balance. Here you can see a payment of £379 to Hackney Skills and Training Ltd was paid on the 15 August 2018. Leaving a balance of £5,340. Below this on the 10 August we have the levy payment of £704 and the 10% top up of £70. If you click on view you will be able to get further information on each transaction.

This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience This shows the debit details for the payment to Hackney Skills and Training Ltd.   You can see the contract reference number. Payment details including how much this payment was and when it was made - £379 on the 15 August £2018. The agreed contract value £2,987.24, payments to date and monies left to pay. Further details that are not shown on this screenshot include the standards and frameworks that are been delivered and details of the apprentices that this payment relates to. For further information on any of these click on view and this will take you to the relevant area with your digital account.

This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience The next section under Funding gives the ability to check the English percentage that's been applied to levy funding.   The English percentage is based on the proportion of the workforce who lived in England in the previous tax year, this is calculated by HMRC. This page shows the English percentage of the current workforce as of the 21 April 2018 is 81%. Any historical English percentages are also displayed. In this example the previous percentage for 20 April 2017 was 85%.

This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience 24 In the funds you could lose section, employers will see the funds that they will loose if they are not spent before they expire.   Funds expire after 24 months of them being paid. This includes the monies from levy declarations, as well as the 10% Government top up. This page makes it easy to identify which funds will expire and when. You can see that within the next three months £1,000 is due to expire and within the next 6 to 12 months £3,447. Below this are more details showing the date the funds are due to expire, the date the levy credit was paid and the value of the expiring funds As you can see the £3,447, which will be expiring in the next 6 to 12 months, is made up from the credits paid in November and December 2017. These will expire in April and May 2019.

This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience Under the view your committed spending page employers can review the amount they’ve committed to spend on apprenticeships until the final apprentice contract ends - in this example 14 December 2021.   The summary gives you a total for each year’s spending commitments, up until the last contract is due to finish. It also gives you the grand total cost of the contracts. In this case £132,832 from 21 August 2018 to 14 December 2021

This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience Back at the main Funding page there is the functionality to download the financial information relating to the account.   This feature is unavailable at the moment as it is still in development.

This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience From the home screen the apprentices section can be accessed.   All the apprentice information is clearly displayed in one place. Employers can Add a new apprentice Review and approve cohorts And view individuals and their details apprenticeship details Within the ‘view apprentices on programme’ link it is possible to transfer, pause or stop the apprenticeship as well as being able to see information on the individual’s apprenticeship journey; their provider, standard being studied, start dates, and estimated completion dates. I will now show you how to add a new cohort of apprentices to the system.

This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience Add an apprentice takes employers through how to add one or a larger cohort of apprentices in a bulk upload to their digital account. This section of the services creates a link between the levy account and training provider, and ensures the training provider gets paid. Before an employer starts to add an apprentice, they must know - who your apprentices will be employed by, if your organisation has more than one legal entity - the UK Provider Reference Number (UKPRN) of your training provider, this will be used to identify your training provider later in the process Employers will click the start button to begin.

This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience Employers need to select the correct employer to add apprentices to. Employers with multiple employers linked to the account will be presented with more than one option. The organisation an employer selects needs to be relate to the PAYE scheme that the apprentice is linked to. Once the correct company has been selected click continue to go to the next screen.

This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience Employers are given the option to add apprentice information themselves, or allow the training provider to do this on their behalf. The majority of employers will allow their training provider to add their apprentices. Training providers will add key information such as the apprentice Unique Learner Number (ULN). Employer do have the option to add their own apprentices data, however, without the ULN this cannot be done. It is therefore advised that employers ask training providers to add their data.

This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience Employers will need to search for and select their training provider that will be training the apprentices. This is done by using the UK Provider Reference Number (UKPRN), which all providers will be able to supply, and clicking find provider.

This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience When the provider is displayed the employer can check the provider details, including the address and UKPRN. If they select yes, then save and continue they will move to the next screen.

This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience Once the training provider has been selected, employers can add a note to provide further information about the apprentices to be added. For example, employers may wish to say ‘25 bakery apprentices with company A’ so that the provider can easily identify this. They can then send this to the training provider. They also have the ability to add in an additional email address to make sure that the information is going to the staff member they have be working with. The digital account will automatically send the update to the nominated contact details the provider has supplied to the Skills Funding Agency.

This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience The final screen in the process provides conformation that the request has been sent, and provides a reference number. The training provider will review the information that has been sent to them. They will add the necessary details of the cohort and send it back to employer for final approval.

This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience Once the training provider has completed their side of the process and the request has been sent back to the employers account, the employer will need to click on ‘’Review and approve cohorts”.

This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience Employers may have more than one commitment in their ‘Review and approve cohorts’ section. The reference number that was received previously will be displayed to help users identify the correct commitment. The search function on the left hand side of the page allows employers to search based on the commitment status New Needs approval Needs your input In progress with provider This will help employers with multiple commitments easily identify where they need to do something.

This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience Once the commitment has been selected, employers will need to review the information that their training provider has entered. Employers can edit the information that would be displayed, add an apprentice or even bulk upload a group of apprentices. To complete the task they would click finished editing when complete. In this example you can see that 5 engineers starting in November 2018 at a cost of £1,500 have already been added.

This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience The final screen before the commitment is made is the payment schedule. This shows employers the amount that the added cohort will cost over the duration of the apprenticeship. The information is provided in a monthly breakdown as well as cumulative total. The total amount to pay in this example is £10,000 which will be paid over 10 months, starting in July 2018. The payment schedule shows a the first payment of £888,86 followed by 8 monthly payment of £888.88. The final payment of £2,000 is due in April 2019, which is 20% of the total apprenticeship costs and will be paid once the end point assessment is completed. Employers then click approve and send to agree to the schedule.

This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience In the last section under apprentices, employers can ‘View apprentices on programme’. This allows employers to review and edit their existing apprentices. It acts as an apprentice management tool and assist with tracking and monitoring of individual and groups of apprentices.

This slide can be removed if presenting to a non-levy audience An employers apprentices will be listed enabling the employer to identify them by their name, date of birth and status. On the left hand side of the screen employers can search for their apprentices by name, the status of the apprenticeship or the training that they are doing. Further information about the apprentice and be found by clicking ‘View’. In the view section an employer can pause, stop, finish or un-pause an apprenticeship. This section is currently under development with ongoing user research and development.

Key milestones - dates subject to change September Feedback received to the published apprenticeship funding proposals October Publish funding bands that apply in the new system Full set of technical rules that underpin the funding system Calculation for English proportion Pilot testing with employers Register of Apprenticeship Training Provider open November December Further employer guidance from HMRC on how to calculate and pay the apprenticeship levy The process has been in development for some time and we have recently passed some key milestones with many more to come. In August we published further proposals on the detailed funding model that would apply to all apprenticeships from May 2017. Feedback to the proposals closed on 5 September and have been incorporated into October announcements. In October 2016 we published the final funding bands that will apply in the new system from the 1 May 2017. As well as the final, full set of technical rules that underpin the funding system. The new Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers has just launched and is open to new applications – including employer providers We have also confirmed how the proportion of pay bill, that is paid to employees living in England will be calculated. October is also when we will be piloting the service with employers and providers. Giving us vital feedback on the full service before it launches in 2017. In December HMRC will provide further guidance to employers on how to calculate and pay the apprenticeship levy.

Key milestones - dates subject to change January Employers to register February March National Apprenticeship Week (6 to 10 March) April Levy paid May Service live Make levy commitments To 2020 All employers to use the service In early 2017 we will enter the last stages of development of the digital apprenticeship service and it will be available on .gov.uk for employers to register and create an account In March 10th National Apprenticeship Week will be taking place from 6 to 10 March. From April 2017 onwards, the apprenticeship levy will be paid within your HMRC calculations In May 2017 you will be able to access the live system and create contracts and commitments with training providers using funds in your digital account By 2020, all employers will be able to use the digital apprenticeship service to pay for training and assessment for apprenticeships. Please note that all dates are provisional and are subject the change.