23 March 2017 
Karel Thomas, Executive Director
HEFCE has been hard at work supporting and funding institutions to develop degree apprenticeships. They have also been funding the Universities Vocational Award Council to provide information, guidance and support to institutions interested in providing degree apprenticeships. The UVAC and SFA will be hosting a provider readiness workshop on 7 April 2017 for institutions to ensure they are prepared to deliver degree apprenticeships from May 2017. Venue details and timings will be published as soon as possible but in the meantime you can contact uvac@bolton.ac.uk for more information.
Meanwhile, colleagues in Payroll Offices across the UK have been preparing to pay the Apprenticeship Levy, which is payable by organisations with an annual paybill of £3 million or more. If you have not set up your digital account yet, time is of the essence as the scheme starts on 6th April. There is a huge amount of information on the Government website, which provides links to how the funds in your digital account can be used. There are different schemes in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
If you have been thinking about how you could use your institution’s levy funds, you should be very interested in the work that the HE Employer Trailblazer Group on the development of the Academic Professional Apprenticeship Standard and the HE Professional Apprenticeship Standard, as well as the early stage work on Technician Apprenticeship Standard and Level 8 Apprenticeship Standard. Although the standards are not quite fully approved, the update tells us they “are still on track to complete the approval process in good time for institutions who wish to draw down their levy funds for the PGCert/MA registration of their September intake of Academic Professionals”. If you would like more information on this, Gilmar Queiros at UniversitiesUK can answer your queries.
