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Levy information for schools


Levy arrangements for local authority maintained schools

Cornwall Council pays the levy for these local authority (LA) maintained schools:

  • Community and
  • Voluntary-controlled

So, these schools can access the Council's levy funds.  The levy cost is taken at source by payroll and passed to HMRC along with tax and NI. The cost of the levy is passed onto schools in the same way that employer NI and pension costs are currently, with the school pay bill increasing by 0.5%. 

Cornwall Council is not responsible for paying the levy for the following schools:

  • Foundation Trust
  • Trust, and
  • Voluntary-aided (VA) schools. 

In a foundation (trust) school, the governing body is the employer and pays class 1 secondary NICs.  So, the governing body also reports and pays the apprenticeship levy.  

Trust and VA schools currently on the Council’s payroll will remain there where their individual pay bill is less than £3m.  Trust or VA school with a paybill of more than £3m will be moved onto their own payroll with a separate PAYE reference.

Levy and DAS arrangement for schools where the local authority is not the employer

This includes: 

  • Standalone academies
  • Academies that are part of multi-academy trusts
  • Foundation
  • Voluntary aided schools

View the following:

Accessing the Council's levy funds

This information only applies to the following LA-maintained schools:

  • Community schools
  • Voluntary-controlled schools

The levy funds for Cornwall Council's workforce and LA maintained schools are held in a digital account service (DAS). 

Individual schools do not have direct access to their individual levy funds. This is due to the way HMRC collects and returns the levy funds via the PAYE system.

The HR Talent team manages the Council's digital account. This team also monitors and reports on the activities; e.g. starters and leavers.  Contact the team to access the levy funds. 

Public Sector Duty arrangements for local authority maintained schools

The government has introduced targets (a Public Sector Duty) for public sector organisations. This includes publicly funded schools. Find out about meeting the target.  

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