The Industrial Training Act 1982 (formerly Industrial Training
Act 1964) empowered the Department for Employment (now Department
for Work and Pensions) to set up industrial training boards which
will be responsible for seeing that the quantity and quality of
training are adequate to meet the needs of the industries for which
they are established. Each industrial training board is required to
impose a periodic levy on employers and also has the power to make
grants to those whose training courses are approved by the board.
This long-standing policy of organising training through statutory
boards was changed in 1982 and some boards have since been
abolished. The emphasis since then has been upon non-statutory
training organisations which are set up within each industry and
which are financed on an ad hoc basis by contributions from
employers etc in the appropriate industry.
Where the employer carries on a trade etc, the levies or
contributions should be treated as admissible trade expenses, while
the grants (for example, in respect of apprentices’ wages and
instructors' salaries) should normally be treated as trading
receipts. Where, however, a grant is earmarked for a particular
item of capital expenditure, for example, to help to build a
factory extension for use in training apprentices, it is not a
trading receipt but should be deducted from the qualifying
expenditure for capital allowance purposes (see CA14100).
The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) is
responsible for promoting vocational training in the construction
industry. It imposes levies (which are allowable deductions) on
employers and contractors in the industry to fund its operations.
These include making grants to employers and contractors whose
training courses are approved by the CITB. Many contractors who pay
levies to the CITB recover the cost from payments to their
subcontractors. The procedure is explained at CIS1423.
