apprenticeship-levy-and-funding-tracker

---
name: apprenticeship-levy-and-funding-tracker
description: Tracks what a hospitality employer actually owes or can draw under the Apprenticeship Levy, and whether an apprentice's 20% off-the-job training is real protected time or a number invented to look compliant. It works out whether the venue pays the levy at all, what the £15,000 allowance is worth against a 0.5% charge, and checks every apprentice's logged hours against what the government's own guidance says does and does not count toward the 20%. Use before a funding claim is submitted, and before "they shadowed a shift" gets logged as off-the-job training.
---

# The levy arithmetic and the 20% test, run against the government's own exclusions

You give this the venue's annual pay bill, and each apprentice's logged hours by activity type. You get back the levy liability or allowance position, and a per-apprentice check of logged off-the-job hours against the activities the guidance explicitly excludes.

## What it does

1. **Decide the levy question from the pay bill threshold, not from the size of the business as the owner feels it.** GOV.UK states the levy is "an amount paid at a rate of 0.5% of an employer's annual pay bill", owed by employers with "an annual pay bill of more than £3 million." Most independent hospitality venues sit well under this, and the skill says so plainly rather than building levy machinery nobody needs.
2. **Apply the £15,000 allowance correctly against the 0.5% charge, for the employers it does apply to.** GOV.UK states "the allowance reduces the amount of Apprenticeship Levy you have to pay by £15,000 across the year", and that levy payments are a deductible expense for Corporation Tax. The skill calculates annual pay bill times 0.5%, less the £15,000 allowance, rather than quoting the headline rate alone.
3. **Report and pay monthly, because the levy is calculated annually but settled on a payroll clock.** GOV.UK is explicit: "You must report and pay Apprenticeship Levy monthly through your Employee Payment Summary." A venue that budgets for the levy as one annual bill is working against the wrong rhythm; the skill tracks it month by month against PAYE.
4. **Treat the 20% off-the-job rule as the legal requirement the government's own apprentice-facing guidance says it is.** Apprenticeships.gov.uk states "Apprentices must spend at least 20% of their working hours completing 'off-the-job' training", and that "this is protected time and is a legal requirement for apprenticeship delivery." The skill checks logged hours against this threshold for every apprentice, not against a provider's informal target.
5. **Strip out the activities the same guidance explicitly says do not count, before calculating the percentage.** The named exclusions are "time spent on initial assessment and onboarding", "maths and English training up to and including Level 2", "progress reviews", and "training which takes place outside the apprentice's normal working hours unless paid or given as time off in lieu." A venue that logs a new apprentice's induction week as off-the-job training is counting hours the government's own guidance says do not count, and the gap is invisible until a funding audit finds it. The skill removes these activities from the numerator before checking the 20% threshold.
6. **Keep the funding route and the training percentage as two separate questions.** Whether training is funded (levy, co-investment, a levy transfer from another business) is one question; whether 20% of paid hours were genuinely off-the-job is another, and a venue can fail the second while being fully funded on the first. The skill reports both, never one standing in for the other.

## Then it checks

1. The levy threshold question is answered against the actual annual pay bill supplied, not assumed either way.
2. Where the levy applies, the £15,000 allowance is applied before, not instead of, the 0.5% calculation.
3. The reporting cadence recorded is monthly through the Employee Payment Summary, matched against actual PAYE submission dates.
4. Every apprentice's logged hours have the excluded activities (initial assessment and onboarding, Level 2 or below maths and English, progress reviews, unpaid out-of-hours training) stripped out before the 20% figure is calculated.
5. Any apprentice whose adjusted off-the-job percentage falls under 20% is named individually, not folded into an average across the team.
6. The funding route used for each apprentice is recorded separately from their training percentage check.

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Anything sent in someone's name says whose name it is.
- Never count an excluded activity toward the 20% figure, however the hours were originally logged.
- Never give tax advice on the Corporation Tax deduction; it records that the levy is deductible, it does not calculate the venue's tax position.
- Never state a current apprenticeship funding rule (co-investment percentage, age-based funding) without a directly read, dated source for the figure; where one was not confirmed, the skill says so rather than repeating a secondhand number.

## Built from
- GOV.UK, "Pay Apprenticeship Levy", https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/apprenticeship-levy, published 12 December 2016, last updated 6 April 2026, read 4 November 2026: the 0.5% rate, the £3 million threshold, the £15,000 allowance, the monthly reporting duty, and the Corporation Tax deduction behind steps 1, 2 and 3.
- Apprenticeships.gov.uk, "Training your apprentice", https://www.apprenticeships.gov.uk/employer/training-your-apprentice, read 4 November 2026: the 20% legal requirement and its named exclusions behind steps 4 and 5.

# apprenticeship-levy-and-funding-tracker

## You are given
The venue's (or group's) annual pay bill, and whether it is connected to other companies or charities for levy purposes. Monthly PAYE submission dates for the tax year. Each apprentice's name, standard, contracted weekly paid hours, and a log of hours by activity type: `theory_training`, `practical_training`, `learning_support`, `assignment_writing`, `initial_assessment_and_onboarding`, `maths_and_english_level_2_or_below`, `progress_reviews`, `unpaid_out_of_hours_training`. The funding route for each apprentice (`levy`, `co_investment`, `levy_transfer_received`, `fully_funded_other`), as already decided by the owner.

## Produce
Write into a `./apprenticeship-levy-and-funding-tracker-output/` folder:

1. `levy-position.csv` with columns: `tax_year`, `annual_pay_bill`, `levy_threshold_met`, `gross_levy_0.5_percent`, `annual_allowance`, `net_levy_payable`, `monthly_levy_payable`. `levy_threshold_met` is `yes` or `no`, computed against the £3,000,000 figure. `gross_levy_0.5_percent` is `annual_pay_bill` multiplied by 0.005. `annual_allowance` is £15,000 where `levy_threshold_met` is `yes`, otherwise not applicable. `net_levy_payable` is the gross figure less the allowance, floored at zero. `monthly_levy_payable` is `net_levy_payable` divided by 12.
2. `payment-schedule.csv` with columns: `month`, `paye_submission_date`, `levy_reported`, `levy_paid`. `levy_reported` and `levy_paid` are `yes` or `no`.
3. `off-the-job-check.csv` with columns: `apprentice_name`, `contracted_weekly_hours`, `total_logged_hours`, `excluded_hours` (sum of `initial_assessment_and_onboarding`, `maths_and_english_level_2_or_below`, `progress_reviews`, `unpaid_out_of_hours_training`), `qualifying_hours` (total minus excluded), `adjusted_percentage` (qualifying hours divided by contracted weekly hours, as a percentage), `meets_20_percent`. `meets_20_percent` is `yes` or `no`.
4. `funding-route.csv` with columns: `apprentice_name`, `standard`, `funding_route`, `meets_20_percent` (copied from `off-the-job-check.csv`).
5. `gaps.md` - a numbered list of: any apprentice in `off-the-job-check.csv` with `meets_20_percent` of `no`, named with their adjusted percentage; any month in `payment-schedule.csv` with `levy_reported` or `levy_paid` of `no` where `levy_threshold_met` is `yes`; and any apprentice with a `funding_route` but no logged hours at all.

## Rules
- Codex counts and computes. It never decides the apprentice's standard, never sets a funding route, and never gives Corporation Tax advice.
- Excluded activity hours are always stripped from the numerator before `adjusted_percentage` is calculated; Codex never counts `initial_assessment_and_onboarding`, `maths_and_english_level_2_or_below`, `progress_reviews` or `unpaid_out_of_hours_training` toward the 20% figure, regardless of how the hours were originally labelled by the owner.
- All percentage and currency figures are computed, never estimated or rounded in the employer's favour.
- Use British English, GBP and DD Month YYYY dates. No em dashes in any file you write.
- Every file ends with this line: this is a working document prepared for the owner to check against their own payroll and training provider records, and for their accountant or training provider to check any disputed levy, funding or off-the-job training question. It is not tax or funding advice.

## Return
The absolute path of each file written and the row count of each CSV. The net levy payable and whether the threshold is met. The number of apprentices failing the 20% test, named individually with their adjusted percentage and the excluded hours that brought them below it. The number of months with a missed levy report or payment. The `gaps.md` item count.