Eastleigh College recently invited local employers to attend a Breakfast meeting at the College’s East Avenue restaurant, to learn more about how the Government’s new Apprenticeship Levy may affect their business. Attendees included Selwood, Arcus Engineering, NSA Health and Southampton Solent University.
The Eastleigh College Apprenticeship Experts team were on-hand to discuss how the new Levy will work, in addition to how employers can make the most out of their tax contributions. The session was also helpful to businesses who are currently ineligible to pay the levy, in order understand how Apprenticeship training will be funded going forwards.
Attendees felt the event was very informative and helped them better understand how to move their business forward under the new legislation, due to be implemented in April 2017.
Suzanne Hill from Colton Care said, “The presenters were really knowledgeable and were able to answer all my questions. I wanted to get an impression of what Eastleigh College would be like as an Apprenticeship provider, and to find out more about Apprenticeships in the Care and Nursing sector. I will be setting up a meeting with the Apprenticeship Experts team to discuss this further.”
Jason Romer from Arcus Engineering said, “The recent changes around qualification levels means you can now enrol workers on lower-level Apprenticeships, which is good for us; we’ve got a few apprentices already, but we were restricted to how many we could recruit externally. Now that we can utilise that money for current employees as well, we will be putting a plan in place for how we can spend the Levy money.”
The Apprenticeship Experts team also detailed their expertise in sourcing and managing apprentices, and their ability to help manage the entire recruitment process from advertisement through to official paperwork and contracts. Various resources on the benefits of apprentices to businesses, in addition to what services the Apprenticeship Experts offer, can be found here.
If you would like to speak to someone about the Apprenticeship Levy, or about hiring apprentices into your business, please call 023 8091 1195 or email experts@eastleigh.ac.uk. For helpful information and resources, please visit www.eastleigh.ac.uk/levy.
One of Eastleigh College's governors, Councillor Judith Grajewski, has been appointed Local Authority Director of Solent LEP. This Local Enterprise Partnership brings the business community together with the further education and higher education sector to ensure a prosperous and sustainable economic future in the region.
Eastleigh College has been awarded AoC Beacon Status in two areas, in recognition of its excellent support for students, and for the College’s work with employers, providing professional training and delivering skills to help grow the economy.