Department for Education

3. Mrs G runs a riding school. As part of the apprenticeship employer incentive payment scheme, for several years she has employed apprentices.

4. Mrs G says she applies annually to DfE to help with training costs. In 2021, Mrs G reserved the funding and entered the details of two apprentices. She says there had been a change to the application process that she had been unaware of, and this led to the late application. This meant DfE rejected her application as out of time.

5. Mrs G says not receiving the grant for the apprentices meant she lost £4,000 in funding and must fund the apprentices’ training herself.

6. Mrs G would like the funding to be awarded retrospectively.

7. In August 2021, Mrs G reserved the funding and entered the details of the two apprentices.

8. Mrs G contacted DfE on 5 May 2022 about the apprenticeship employer incentive payment.

9. On 6 May, Mrs G received a response, explaining it was sorry to hear Mrs G had missed the deadline and that the deadline for apprentices hired as new recruits between 1 April and 30 September 2021 was 30 November 2021.

10. Mrs G responded and asked why she would register the apprentices and reserve the funding and then not apply for the funding. Mrs G says it is DfE’s responsibility to make sure small businesses employing apprentices are funded.

11. On 18 May, Mrs G received a response to her stage one complaint. DfE says the apprenticeship employer incentive payments will only be made for apprentices that have been successfully applied for through the apprentice service account.

12. Mrs G says while she agrees that DfE published deadlines in various places, details on how to claim, navigate and using its application are poor. Mrs G was unhappy with the response and emailed DfE on 19 May asking for the next level of the appeal process.

13. On 15 June, DfE responded to Mrs G’s stage two complaint. It says the actions of adding learners to the apprenticeship service to reserve funds to cover the cost of the apprenticeship training are separate to applying for the incentive payment for hiring a new apprentice.

17. Phase 2 applications (eligible employment dates: 1 April to 30 September 2021) opened up on the apprenticeship service on 1 June 2021. This is detailed in 2021 Employer Rules version 5v1.0, which says:

‘E139 You must claim by the end of November 2021 any incentive payments for hiring a new apprentice for apprentices with a contract of employment start date between 1 April 2021 and 30 September 2021 inclusive and an apprenticeship practical period start date between 1 April 2021 and 30 November 2021 inclusive.

E146 You can use the apprenticeship service to claim incentive payments for hiring a new apprentice from 1 June 2021.’

18. The apprenticeship employer incentive application deadline for apprentices hired as new recruits between 1 April and 30 September 2021 was 30 November 2021.

19. DfE says it communicated this deadline by:

• banners in employers’ apprenticeship service accounts • gov.uk guidance page and its apprenticeships.gov.uk financial incentives page • apprenticeship service help articles • direct emails to employers with an apprenticeship service account • emails to training providers and intermediary organisations • newsletters • its social media channels (YouTube ‘how to apply’ video, Twitter and LinkedIn) • the employer version of the apprenticeship funding rules (which gives details of how to claim for the apprenticeship employer incentive payment), which it included on its apprenticeship.gov.uk financial incentives pages.

20. DfE says because the payment is made directly to employers, to get the payment it is the employer’s responsibility to apply for the payment and provide it with the necessary bank account details and any other information requested.

21. While employers can give the training provider permission to create funding reservations and to add apprentices to the apprenticeship service account, the employer incentive application must be processed by the employer.

22. Although Mrs G says she was unaware of the second part of the process, we cannot see that DfE has done anything wrong.

23. The DfE guidelines say, ‘It is the employer’s responsibility to claim the incentive payment on the apprenticeship service for each eligible apprentice’.

24. Our ‘Principles of Good Administration’ say to get things right organisations should be ‘making reasonable decisions, based on relevant guidance’ and ‘following their own policies and procedures’.

25. DfE acted in line with its own policies and procedures when making the decision to decline Mrs G’s application.

26. Although Mrs G did add the details of the two apprentices, DfE would not be expected to know that she was going to apply for the incentive payment. DfE says some employers choose not to apply for the incentive payment for hiring a new apprentice.

27. Our ‘Principles of Good Administration’ say to be customer-focused organisations should be helpful and make sure people can access their services easily.

28. DfE has communicated its deadline for applications well. It used various methods of communication, to make sure all applicants were aware of its deadlines. We would not expect DfE to contact each applicant to tell them about the process.

29. While we understand how Mrs G was affected by not getting the payments, we cannot say DfE did anything wrong. We realise this is unlikely to be the outcome Mrs G was looking for. We hope we have clearly explained the reasons for our decision and we thank Mrs G for bringing her concerns to us.

1. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman has carefully considered Mrs G’s complaint about the Department for Education (DfE). We are sorry to hear about the circumstances that led Mrs G to approach us.

2. Having looked carefully at the evidence, we have not seen any failings in what happened. For this reason, although we recognise Mrs G’s frustrations, we have decided not to take further action on her complaint. We explain the reasons below in more detail.