FOI release

Freedom of Information (FOI) response: apprenticeships up to July 2019

Published 18 September 2019

  • Date requested: 21 August 2019
  • Date responded: 18 September 2019

1. Request

The FOI request asked for the following information:

  • how much DfE has paid towards the apprenticeship levy since its introduction in April 2017
  • how much DfE has drawn down from its levy account in the period
  • how many apprentices the department has recruited in the period

2. FOI response

Under section 21 of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, the Department for Education (DfE) is not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you.

The information that you have requested shows departmental expenditure over £25,000, including our apprenticeship levy payments.

You will be able to download the CSV file for each month and search on ‘levy’.

In total we have drawn down £983,000 since the levy’s introduction in April 2017 up until 31 July 2019. This is the amount that we have spent on learning in that period and doesn’t include any other incentive payments.

Information is not held in the format requested. Of the 354 people who started an apprenticeship in the period from April 2017 to 31 July 2019, at least 116 were new hires through the Civil Service Fast Track programme.