A double whammy of tax rises with the hope of a more inclusive approach to training from Skills England

Bekki Phillips – Executive Director of In-Comm Training

Bekki Phillips, Executive Director of independent training provider In-Comm Training, casts her eye over Labour’s first budget and why there may be crumbs of optimism in the face of short-term pain.

“The tax rise on business is even worse than many of the commentators were predicting and, with 71 employees across our two technical academes in the West Midlands, the NI contributions increase and threshold reduction is a painful double whammy.

We will need to factor in what this means, but it could certainly curtail some of our investment plans we were planning to make to inject even more new technology into the hands of our learners.

From a training perspective, I sincerely hope that the creation of Skills England and the £240m put aside for trailblazer projects will help bring about some much-needed changes with the apprenticeship levy – mainly to help widen what training businesses can access.

Apprentices have done very well out of the Chancellor’s pay increases with the biggest bump up to £7.55 per hour. This means their annual wage should rise to £14,762 from £12,513, a boost that will hopefully mean they choose vocational training and a long-term career over a quick job in McDonalds.

Investment in the Industrial Strategy and for key growth sectors is a big one for In-Comm Training, as we do so much with engineering and advanced manufacturing.

Again, we will need to see the detail, but I just hope that the money doesn’t just go to the big companies at the top of the chain and that it actually filters down to the SMEs.”