Joint Interprofessional funds for continuing education

Legge n. 388 del 2000

Law 388 of 2000, Article 118 establishes the institution of the Funds but does not define the specific objectives.

The main reasons that contributed to the introduction of the instrument are:
1. spreading the practices of continuing education among the Italian companies through consolidated structural policies, thus abandoning the episodic and fragmented interventions that had characterized the previous period;
2. financing educational initiatives that have a close link with the real needs of the companies, through the dialogue between the social partners constituting the Funds;
3. use properly the contribution paid by companies and workers (0.30% of salary): as a matter of fact, before the introduction of these Funds, resources were used indiscriminately for the co-financing of all ESF programs therefore also for the initial training. With the introduction of the Funds, the money paid by companies and workers finally converge towards supporting initiatives dedicated to them.

The Interprofessional Funds are set up as inter-sectoral associations through agreements between the social partners and are authorized to operate by the Ministry of Labour. Each Fund has a board composed by an equal number of representatives of trade unions and representatives of organizations of employers. The Board elects the President (representing the employers) and the Director General (representing the trade unions). All Funds will have an array of officials and technicians whose amount depends on the size of the Fund.
In 2015, about 60 organizations representing employers’ association or trade unions were involved in the management of 18 Interprofessional Funds.

The Funds finance training initiatives aimed exclusively at employees in the companies adherent to each Fund.

None

Training initiatives aimed at the maintenance and updating of the professional skills of workers.

All Italian companies pay annually to the INPS (National Institute of Social Security) a 'compulsory contribution against involuntary unemployment' which is equal to 1.61% of the total wages paid by each company and is used largely for income support. The INPS is responsible for the allocation to each Interprofessional Fund of the contributions from companies which is 0.30% of gross wages. A third of the contribution is paid by the employee, two-thirds by the firm. The accreditation to the Funds takes place every two months with an annual final balance. For the contributions, companies can also choose not to join any Fund and in this case the contribution remains to INPS.

The co-financing of companies is variable depending on the nature of the initiative: for solidarity actions in favor of small or micro enterprises is lower (the Fund's contribution is higher); for the training plans related to large companies co-financing is generally higher.
In the year 2013, the business contribution was 35% of the amount of training plans approved by the Funds.

Allocation: via “call or public tender”: companies submit their training plans which will be assessed and selected by the Fund 2) the "corporate account": the company can use the amount contributed to finance ist training plan with a very quick procedure.
Training plans eligible for funding are those related to one or more companies or sectoral (in the case of several companies from the same sector).

Fees and aother costs related to education and training

In the period 2004 - 2014 about EUR 4.7 billion were allocated to Funds and about 85% of this amount was redistributed back to companies to finance training plans

On average, each year the funds fund the training of about 1 000 000 workers. In detail, in 2013 29 100 training plans were approved involving 57 000 enterprises and 2 195 000 workers. During the first half of 2014, 13 000 training plans have been financed involving 21 200 companies and 836 000 workers.

The Ministry of Labour is responsible for monitoring with the technical assistance of ISFOL. There is no evaluation activity.

The results of monitoring activity are published annually in the Annual Report on Continuing Education (edited by the Ministry of Labour with the technical assistance of ISFOL). There are no reports of evaluation.

http://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/publications-and-resources/country-repo…

Each Interprofessional Fund has its own website with relevant information.

Over the years, the Fund has had regulatory developments related to:
1. the agricultural sector that has a different form of contribution;
2. the provision of portability of contributions for the firms from one Fund to another;
3. the identification of maximum levels for management expenses tailored to the size of the Funds;
4. the introduction of public services among the sectors targeted by the Funds.

The crisis has affected also the scope of the Funds, in particular in 2013 when a portion of the resources allocated to them has been diverted to strengthen the income support for unemployed workers (in 2013 were written off 246 million euro).
The recent measure named Jobs Act provides for the possibility for the Ministry of Labour to set binding priorities for funds (e.g.: on particular types of beneficiaries or particular types of companies).

The reasons that led to the introduction of the adjustments listed above are as follows:
1. the need to extend the system of funds even to a sector such as agriculture that had low training activities;
2. the introduction of a certain competition between the Funds giving the opportunity to the companies to change the Fund without losing all the contributions previously deposited (the rule is that you can bring to the new fund 70% of the amount paid to the Fund of provenance);
3. the need to maximize the amount that is used to finance training initiatives led to establish very precise quotas for management expenses within the Funds;
4. the Ministry of Labour believes that the action of the Funds can be better integrated with other forms of action, thus following, within a certain extent, the priorities of the Government.

XV Rapporto annuale sulla Formazione Continua in Italia (ISFOL)
Rapporto annuale sulla Formazione Continua in Italia
Annual Report on Continuing Training in Italy
http://www.isfol.it/pubblicazioni/highlights/rapporto-formazione-contin…

The Internet sites of the 18 Funds