The apprenticeship levy will generate £900 million less funding in its first four years than the government originally forecast according to the Office for Budget Responsibility in its new “economic and fiscal outlook” report which estimates the tax will accumulate £10.7 billion by early 2021. This is a fall of eight per cent on the original forecast of £11.6 billion, which was made when it was announced in 2015. The report says “we have revised down receipts from the apprenticeship levy by £0.1 billion a year relative to November…having only been introduced in April last year, the profile of monthly receipts is still uncertain. However, with 10 months of revenues received by HMRC, it seems likely that full-year receipts will be lower than expected when the measure was first costed.” More on this story is here.
