The 2024 – 2025 Apprenticeship Funding rules come into effect for apprenticeship starts from 1st August 2024.
Some of the changes in this year’s rules are:
- Reducing the administrative requirements associated with onboarding an apprentice and monitoring their progress. The burden of onboarding has been reduced by integrating initial assessment with development of the training plan, reducing the number of documents employers and providers need to review and sign. In addition, providers will also no longer need to ask employers to sign off each progress review.
- Widening the flexibilities in English and Maths requirements for apprentices who have learning difficulties and disabilities. Following a positive pilot, English and maths flexibilities have been extended for apprentices who have learning difficulties or disabilities but no Education, Health and Care Plan, so that they can study a more suitable level of English and maths.
- Reducing the administrative requirements for learning support. The bureaucracy associated with claiming learning support has been reduced by moving reviews from monthly to every 3 calendar months. An assessment for learning support can happen at any time during the apprenticeship.
- Reviewing the minimum requirement for active learning. To support more flexible approaches to the delivery of training, the active learning requirement for programmes that have a front-loaded or a block release delivery model has been changed. For these two models, active learning must be delivered at least every 3 calendar months.
- Introducing a new de-minimis in relation to subcontracting. The £30,000 de-minimis that was proposed in the draft funding rules has been reviewed and has increased to £100,000. This will enable greater flexibility in subcontracting arrangements and make it easier for providers to bring in industry specialists to deliver training.
You can access the summary of changes here.
You can access the Apprenticeship funding rules here.