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It turns out it's predominantly for apprentices who went on a break and haven't yet returned. With Additional Payments, a student who earned the 365 day payment, who we then later record as having gone on a break at 330 days, would get the funding clawed back from us, and we'd have to ask for it back from the employer if we'd already paid them. Apparently, they didn't do this with the Incentive Payments and "Some of these were still processed based on the understanding the learner would return". That's what they're now asking for repayment for when the apprentice hasn't returned. I guess if you've reported a really late withdrawal recently it could fall under this too (or maybe an employer goes rogue and decides to stop a very old record back to before the Actual End Date). Withdrawal repayments were mostly done at the time I assume.
That is not at all what the ESFA update said, so I'm glad I queried it.
Ruth Canham-James
Apprentice Incentive Payment Repayment
Created
Does anyone know any more about this from the ESFA Update on the 27th?
I though they were talking about Additional Payments and using the wrong term. I got an email back from the Apprenticeship Service and it appears to actually be talking about the COVID Incentive Payments that were available in 2020-2021 (£3,000, £2,000 or £1,500) and were applied for by the employer through the Apprenticeship Service. All those payments would have been made years ago, they're not still going on are they? Unless people are reporting really late withdrawals, why is this coming up now? Did they never claw back any of the payments at the time? Are they really chasing clawback from 3 years ago?