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In theory, yes. In reality, I've never heard of it happening. I'm pretty confident they wouldn't do it without warning you and giving you a chance to explain. I think if you can prove you made every effort to collect, and can show evidence you chased it and didn't just let them off, that would be sufficient.
Thanks Ruth,
And to confirm I don't believe there is a way we can take this co-investment hit ourselves?
One of these learners we are owed £16 in a Levy-Shortfall payment which is withholding a £1800 completion payment which (if we could) we'd take the hit on this to release the completion payment to us.
Ryan
The only way to release that payment, if you absolutely can't get the employer to pay, would be to reduce the total price to a level that means they didn't owe you more than they actually paid. I definitely wouldn't recommend that, and it would involve the employer agreeing the change on the Apprenticeship Service. You are categorically not allowed to record a PMR if you didn't receive it, even if you don't care about the £16.
We don't normally let apprentices sit their EPA if we're outstanding payments from the employer. If the only money they owe was as a result of insufficient funds on the final Completion payment, ESFA don't withhold the Completion payment. They can't really, as it would be a circular argument. Since we only check for insufficient funds every quarter, it's technically possible that a levy employer could owe us for an on-programme payment, and we wouldn't have spotted that until after EPA, but it's pretty unlikely given that the gap between them getting to gateway and sitting the EPA. Doing it quarterly (rather than waiting until the end) helps us find and deal with reluctant payers before it becomes too late. We make sure we explain really clearly why they owe us money. I give the account manager the details, and they usually call to explain before we invoice.
We have it in our employer contract, that if we lose funding as a result of their action/inactions, we will invoice them for what we lost, so that would be the £1,800 plus the £16 they owed us anyway. We've never had to invoke that though, as so far they've all just paid.
It's rather punitive that we can lose thousands because an employer refuses to pay £16 🙁
Ryan Wiseman
Co-Investment - Funding Clawback?
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Hi all,
Is there any risk of a funding clawback for an apprentice where we have not received 100% of the total co-investment due (in all years)?
I am aware the 20% completion payment is held back if this is not collected, is there any potential clawback of the already received 80% on programme earnings?
We have a couple of employers who have not paid our invoice(s) for the 23/24 academic year & I want to make sure the appropriate teams are aware of the potential £ loss value if these funds are not collected by R14 & I don't know if I should do completion payment + co-investment due or all on programme earnings & completion payment + co-investment due.
Ryan