The Apprenticeship Levy - A Case of Government Failure?

An article here that highlights the fact the Apprenticeship Levy doesn't appear to be working. Not only does it force firms to contribute to funding such schemes, "all employers with an annual wage bill of £3m or more have to pay 0.5pc of their staff costs into a fund topped up by government".

And yet, if you drill down into the data, there are some interesting figures: "as October, of the 19,150 companies paying into the levy, only 11,900 had registered to claim funding back from it. This means that 38pc of companies contributing to the levy have effectively written the money off." Is this a classic example of government failure.