UK Screen Alliance is announcing today its Apprenticeship Levy Transfer Fund, to be known as the ALT Fund. This pot which will be at least £100,000 is to be made available for apprenticeship training in small and medium sized VFX, post and animation companies. Applications are welcome from member and non-member companies.
We intend to increase the overall stock of trained competent people within our industry for the benefit of the whole industry by asking large companies who must pay the Apprenticeship Levy, to contribute the levy they haven’t been able to spend to a “virtual fund”. Donor companies, although not benefiting immediately, will benefit eventually from the improved pool of talent available in the industry in future.
Levy payments that large companies have made on a monthly basis since April 2017 will soon start to expire if unused. From April 2019, unused levy will be expiring at a rate of £114,000 per month from the post and VFX sector, which is an incredible waste. This money simply reverts to the Exchequer and the levy really will have become just another employment tax. There’s a real urgency to avoid this.
We already have several large levy-paying companies who have pledged up to 10% of their annual levy contributions and will donate potentially up to 25% from next April. UK Screen Alliance will pro-actively market the ALT Fund to non-levy payers to facilitate the introduction of willing levy transfer partners.
UK Screen Alliance will be acting as a dating agency to match the donor companies to the recipients. The actual money flow is an account allocation within the Government’s Digital Account Service which is agreed between the donor and recipient companies. The chosen training providers then dip directly into this on a monthly basis to fund the delivery of the training. Such transfers are allowed by the Government’s rules.
Small non-levy paying companies (with less than a £3 million payroll) can access this free training money for new apprentices or very importantly, to upskill existing employees. VFX houses, post production companies or animation studios could receive around £9,000 to fund apprenticeship training such as 2D Compositor or Assistant Technical Director, which will be starting in January.
A list of courses that could be paid for by ALT fund money are below, along with other courses that are coming soon.
UK Screen Alliance will charge a small brokerage fee of 1% to the recipients to cover our costs for introducing willing transfer partners, but this fee will be waived for UK Screen Alliance or Animation UK member companies. Donor companies will pay no fee.
We would like to hear from companies that have excess levy that they would like to donate. We are also now accepting requests from smaller companies willing to train apprentices who want to access this free money.
Please contact us at UK Screen Alliance for all the details. Apprenticeships available now:
- Junior 2D Artist (Visual Effects) – Level 4
- Assistant Technical Director (Visual Effects) – Level 4
- Broadcast & Media Systems Technical Operator – Level 3
- Broadcast Production Assistant – Level 3
- Junior Content Producer – Level 3
- Team Leader – Level 3
- Business Administrator – Level 3
- Project Manager – Level 3
- Digital Marketer – Level 3
- Marketing Executive – Level 4
- PR Assistant – Level 4
- HR Support – Level 3
- Accounts assistant – Level 2 and Level 3
Coming soon:
- Post Production Technical Operator – Level 4
- Junior Animator – Level 4
- Storyboard Artist – Level 7
- Broadcast and Media Systems Technician – Level 5
- Creative Industries Production Manager – Level 7
- Creative Industries Production Coordinator – Level 4
