Levy payer with no levy funds left

Yes, they will have to co-invest at 5% where they have insufficient funds, and this will show on the co-investment report each month.

Just keep an eye on whether you do end up getting some levy money eventually. If the current apprentices finish, and these  new ones are still on programme, you may end up earning some funds through their levy. If that happens, and you charged 5% up front, you may owe them a bit of a refund. It'll all show in the apps monthly payment and co-investment reports.

Looking back at this post, if a levy paying employer who ran out of funds during the apprenticeship but then midway through the apprentice's programme suddenly has funds in their levy pot, will these funds then be used again? If so, will previous funds also be requested that they have already paid 5% contributions for that we will then need to pay back, or once they become a co-invester due to insufficient funds, they remain that way for remainder of apprenticeship?

Any help would be appreciated. I don't feel the funding rules answer this specific question. Looking at Paragraphs 119 and 142.

The service will use whatever levy funds are available first, and then require co-investment on whatever amount is remaining. For instance, if the monthly earnings were supposed to be £500, but there was only £400 left in levy funds, these would be used first, and the employer would then be required to co-invest 5% of the remaining £100 (i.e., £5).

This process will repeat every month and, where applicable, will trigger co-investment only in the event that the employer has insufficient funds, and only for that month. Each month is treated in isolation. You will not have to pay back co-investment if it was required in a given month.

It is the balance on the employers levy account in the month that the payment is due.

The technical funding guide covers this in the following:

60. Co-investment is slightly different where an employer's account has a positive balance, but the balance is less than that month's earnings for an apprentice. In these cases, we will use all of the available balance in the employer’s account and the co-investment required from the employer will be 5% or 10% (as described in paragraphs 57 to 59) of the remaining earnings up to the funding band maximum.

HTH

Thanks for your response Martin. Just looking across multiple months, the value of coinvestment payment and contribution payment stays the same across multiple months, this is before and after the employer took on new apprentices. I suspect this is simply an empty pot. 

So using this case as an example, are you saying it is taken on a month by month basis?

I'm only querying this as i wasn't sure whether contribution payment was no longer required if funds were later available in an employer's account midway through the apprenticeship.

Every month that earnings are warranted the service will first try to use whatever is in the levy pot. If the earnings are £500, but there's only £400 in the pot, this will always be used first. Co-investment will then apply to the residual amount (in this case £100), at the appropriate rate (5% being £5, or 10% being £10). 

It sounds possible from what you're saying that the employer is actually non-levy and reserved funds to pay for the apprenticeship. Reserved funds are classed as government-employer co-investment, meaning the usual co-investment rules apply. 

If that's not the case, and at some point your employer does have levy funds to pay, this won't also be used to pay for the previous months' co-investment. Every month is treated individually.