Levy or Non-Levy?

Hi Steve

We had a similar situation over a year ago and it turned out that the employer was a levy payer but had set up the DAS account wrongly and they needed to get into touch with the Apprenticeship Service themselves to sort it. Is this the first apprentices they have or have they had others? 

Thanks for the reply, this is the only Apprentice they have on programme with us. Out of interest, what could the mistake be, do they have to select whether they are Levy/Non-Levy when they create the account?

I don't know what they are asked when they set it up, but I do know that once an employer has a levy payer account, it can't be switched to non-levy if the company shrinks and never pays anything into their pot again! It's good for them, as they don't have to do reservations, but they'll have insufficient funds all the time. It makes it complicated for providers as you can never be sure what you're dealing with until the first reports come through. It would be really helpful if providers could at least see which type of account an employer holds, though it still doesn't tell you whether they're currently paying the levy.

If an employer is originally non-levy, and they expand and start paying the levy, I don't think they automatically get a levy account either, they have to apply for it.

If the employer does get this sorted, it won't apply retrospectively, they'll still owe you the 5% for months before they got it fixed. We had one like that and the employer was very cross about it. We couldn't have helped them even if we tried, and we couldn't just let them off or we'd lose the whole 20% completion.

If I remember rightly it was the wrong PAYE account that they had set up on the DAS. So something we couldn't see. 

I agree Ruth, knowing if they are levy or not would be useful. Our employer still had to pay the missing 5% co-investment too.