Levy Shortfalls

As far as I'm aware, you've missed the opportunity. Doesn't hurt to ask DfE though if you can claim manually once you can evidence you received the outstanding contribution.

We have it written into our contracts that, if we lose funding as a result of something the employer did wrong, or failed to do, we can invoice them. We never do in reality, but we could. If you never requested the payments, that obviously doesn't help.

The last month before R14 involves a LOT of making sure co-investments have been paid, especially those that completed the EPA in the closing year. Any outstanding insufficient funds that were only as a result of the completion payment, should be collected, but won't stop you getting the completion payment. It's such an easy way to lose funding, and requires a lot of work to avoid it.

Thanks Ruth - I have submitted a helpdesk request & will see what they come back with.

£11,000 in completion payments withheld because of a total of £300 in levy-shortfalls, very frustrating!

Really trying to get ahead of this this year... Ask me again in October how I got on...

Main problem is stuff that happened three years ago, first employer never paid and it didn't get chased but at least being able to quantify that ahead of R14 can temper expectations on income...

It's such a punitive system for what is a small oversight 😕

From August we'll be chasing 25% for insufficient funds I assume. It's so unfair for those employers that are only a little above the levy threshold. For them, having a levy account is financially negative if most of their apprentices are 16-21. Insufficient funds apply to all ages, not just 22+. Last time I asked, employers had to actively request to change to a levy account, it isn't automatic. If that's correct, if they keep their non-levy account they pay nothing for 16-21 year olds (perhaps 16-24 soon). If they get a levy account, they might be able to access 17% of the monthly amount from their levy, but have to pay 25% of the remaining 83%. There are also levy account holders who haven't paid any levy for a while. They can go back to a non-levy account, but it involves completing closing their current one, and opening a new one. 

We have a levy employer who usually has half a dozen apprentices on the go, and can only afford one of them on average. They have to pay the shortfall. Another employer, who is only a little smaller, but below the £3million, pays nothing if the apprentices are a 16-21. Whilst it's only 5% it's not too bad, but 25% is going to be tough.

I remember attending a session when the levy was first introduced, and a well know sector voice even suggested avoiding employers around that £3million cusp because it was so complicated. It'll be even worse with 25%.

To confirm - have heard back from the DfE

When a learner fully completes in the previous academic year, we are not able to retrospectively claim their earnt completion payment via EAS so we need to receive all outstanding co-investment by R14.

To other people reading this - it may seem pedantic chasing employers for £20-£30 for a levy-shortfall during the busy main enrolment months, be persistent or you may have a few learners not receive their completion payment/20% of TNP!

I thought that the threshold for receiving sufficient co-investment to trigger the completion payment was something in the region of 90+%.  This would mean that small discrepancies would not prevent payment of the completion payment.  Has anybody else noticed this, or am I wrong?  

I find this whole thing tricky to manage because there doesn't seem to be a single report that clearly shows all the necessary information.  
1) The co-investment and PMRs report:
a) sometimes splits an apprenticeship over multiple lines, eg if there is a BIL.  So, the calculations about % received need to be manually calculated.  
b) sometimes includes apprenticeships for which no co-investment is needed. These lines show that % collected is 0%.  

2) The Employer-level co-investment report:
a) aggregates multiple lines of the same apprenticeship into a single line (this is good), but 
b) it omits the amount and % of co-investment payments collected (bad).  

It would be interesting to hear how others manage this in case I am missing something.  

I only use the co-investment report for final checks at completion. We mostly start off in the Apps Monthly Payment report, filter for levy payers, and check each month to see if anything is due from the employer. Much clearer and easier. You can then combine with the co-investment report for further info. We have a really solid process for all the non-levy, and we charge up front, so I don't worry about those until they complete.

I don't know about any tolerance. I'd hope there was, but I've never seen anything published. I wouldn't expect it to be 90%, that's way off. The rounding and the fact that you can only record whole numbers in PMR, can mean you're pence short sometimes so we round up our PMRs to the nearest pound for that reason and rarely have issues with being pence under the requirement.

Hi Peter

Yes, it's definitely somewhere in the region of 97% ish... Haven't got enough examples to be able to prove how far "down" it goes though!

In terms of your other point, yes it's tricky (he says having spent all morning looking at R05 data), no I don't think it's all in one place, no I don't think you're missing anything.

I *think* the no co-investment ones are where there wasn't a SEM flag at one point in the life of their apprenticeship so co-investment was generated but then putting the SEM flag in zeroes it off but they stay on the report even though it's zeroes all the way this year (I've got three of these! Took me a while).

I *think* the no co-investment ones are where there wasn't a SEM flag at one point in the life of their apprenticeship so co-investment was generated but then putting the SEM flag in zeroes it off but they stay on the report even though it's zeroes all the way this year (I've got three of these! Took me a while).

That's what those are! I have often wondered why there are rows with all zeros.

I've just remembered that when we record PMRs, we can only record whole pounds, so there will usually be discrepancies due to the missing pence in the %collected calculation.  

Steve Hewitt you're right about the SEM flag, the service desk told me the same thing.  

Per Ruth's comment, Always (always) Round Up PMRs is my mantra (although unit-e is a bit of a pain when it comes to this...).

I know I've mentioned this several times before but the oddest one I had was when the SEM code came and went four times on the same learner and they ended up with 0.0008p "outstanding" and I had to get authorisation to use the Special Code to release the completion payment...