A political feud has emerged over £221million in Apprenticeship Levy funds due to be paid to Scotland in 2017/18.
The Scottish Conservatives claim that the SNP has blown a “golden opportunity” to invest in Scotland’s workforce after it failed to ring fence its share of the levy funds.
But the Labour party attacked the claims as a “complete shambles”, pointing to analysis that revealed Scotland faces a £30million shortfall as public sector employers will have to pay the levy along with larger firms.
Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson said: “The SNP was presented with a golden opportunity to invest in Scotland’s future workforce at a time when our economy is lagging behind the rest of the UK.
“The Scottish Conservatives have been clear that every penny of this funding should be spent on developing a skilled workforce to help boost our economy.”
Labour MSP Daniel Johnson said: “This is a complete shambles from the Scottish Conservatives. It doesn’t matter how many times Ruth Davidson tries to pretend that there are hundreds of millions of pounds are on offer – the truth is her Tory friends in Westminster have designed a tax which will actually lose money for Scotland.
“That means we’ll either need to cut £30million from our public services – schools, hospitals and police – or raise more money elsewhere.”
The SNP came under fire by employer groups and trade bodies in the north-east after it emerged the funding from the Apprenticeship Levy, which comes into force next year, would not be specifically set aside, putting jobs and training in Scotland at risk.
This came despite employment minister Jamie Hepburn pledging that “all of the funds raised through the Apprenticeship Levy will be spent to support skills, training and routes into employment”.
He added that the result of a consultation with employers over how to allocate levy funds will be revealed in the Scottish budget next week.
