M&S joins plea for government to overhaul apprenticeship levy

Marks & Spencer’s Director of Human Resources, Sarah Findlater, has joined the company’s calls for a revamp of the Government’s apprenticeship scheme, urging those in charge to make it "simpler for employers to access" the fund.

Sarah Findlater, who is at the helm of hiring M&S 64,000 staff, said the scheme was "too difficult to access, so millions of pounds are going unspent".

She called on the chancellor "to reform the levy and make it more flexible and simpler for employers to access this fund so we can create even more apprenticeships and valuable career development opportunities".

According to Findlater, M&S currently has 200 apprentices but it would like to undertake more if the scheme was simplified and revamped.

This is not the first time the British retailer has urged the government to reform the levy. Last year, CEO of M&S, Stuart Machin, said the levy was preventing M&S from training more young people, and criticised the tax for not being ringfenced, "meaning the government just takes it and spends it on what it likes".

He added: "In theory we should be able to claim the money back for each apprentice we take on, but overly restrictive, bureaucratic rules mean it’s really difficult to access the funds.

"Put simply, the levy is a tax on opportunity and on growth, and is in desperate need of reform."

The levy was introduced in 2017 and requires employers with an annual wage bill of more than £3 million to pay 0.5% of payroll costs into a fund for training. They are then able to claim back some of their apprenticeship costs. However,  according to bosses at Co-operative Group, Superdrug, N Brown Group and M&S, the complicated system has too many challenging barriers. For example, unsuitable courses and programme lengths were among the biggest barriers to using the apprenticeship scheme.