What was the response to SME contribution cut? FE Soundbite #468

Welcome to FE Soundbite Edition #468

Today is FE Soundbite’s 9th birthday!

The budget dominated the news this week. Particularly the 50% reduction in SME’s Apprenticeship employer contribution from 10% to 5%.

This is great, but clarification is needed… when will this start?

Will this delay some SME’s taking on Apprentices until the 5% contribution kicks in (then with the knock-on effect on Apprenticeship starts etc).

The 50% reduction in SME contribution was said to be a £695M package for Apprenticeships (only if SME’s take up the offer!).

Which is fantastic on the surface, but seeing as the Chancellor gave £420M to fix potholes and gave schools £400M to ‘buy the little things’ it is a great start… but you would hope there was a bit more to hand out.

Old Skills Minister Matt Hancock received the Lion’s share of the budget wins for the NHS and Mental health, which is great, but maybe Anne Milton needs to ask him for a couple of tips, as he certainly came out on top with the most budget wins!

Our most popular article this week was: Sector Response to the Budget. SME contribution cut to 5% as part of £695m package to support apprenticeships

There are some really interesting comments in here. We were also sent by DfE this update to the budget (which I didn’t hear in the budget myself): £38 million so that the first post-16 providers to deliver T Levels from 2020 can invest in high quality equipment.

I hope you enjoy this the 9th-anniversary edition of Soundbite… 468 editions are a lot! The whole idea of Soundbite was to give you a snapshot of the week’s news, 9 years later and here we are.