The New Skills Fund, introduced by the Relaunch Decree and refinanced by the August Decree, is one of the measures foreseen to deal with the Covid-19 epidemic. The Fund, set up at the National Agency for Active Employment Policies (ANPAL), can be accessed by companies that have entered into agreements with trade unions to reschedule working hours to manage the company’s changing organisational and production needs or promote reallocation of workers. In a Decree dated 22 January 2021, the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies, in agreement with the Ministry of Economy and Finance, extended the deadline for entering into trade union agreements and submitting ANPAL the applications to access the Fund to 30 June 2021. On 17 February 2021, ANPAL published Directorial Decree no. 69, implementing the new deadlines and modifying those for the preliminary investigation phase to allow the completion of activities, including expenditure, by 31 December 2021. There was a great deal of expectation from companies, as the previous deadline to enter such agreements had expired on 31 December. This year, the collective agreements must provide training projects, the number of employees involved and the number of hours of working time allocated to training courses (the maximum limit remains 250 hours).
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The Fondo Nuove competenze – FNC (New Skills Fund) was introduced by article 88, paragraph 1, of the “Relaunch Decree” (Decree Law no. 34/2020) and subsequently amended by Article 4 of the August Decree (Decree Law no. 104/2020).
It is a tool with a twofold purpose introduced during the emergency – to allow workers to acquire new or increased skills and the tools needed to adapt to further labour market conditions and support companies adapting to the new organisational and production models brought about by the COVID-19 epidemiological emergency.
The FNC, set up at the Agenzia Nazionale delle Politiche Attive del Lavoro – ANPAL (National Agency for Active Employment Policies), provides resources for employee training hours costs, including the relevant social security and welfare contributions, subject to a rescheduling of working time.
By accessing the FNC the employer has an immediate advantage, i.e. a significant reduction in labour costs, with the possibility of combining a reduction in working hours with training, unlike other support methods, such as the redundancy fund.
The fund is open to all private employers who have stipulated collective agreements to reschedule working hours due to changes in the organisational and productive needs of the company.
The measure includes employees of companies eligible for the FNC financial contributions or staff leasing agency workers, for whom working time is reduced in exchange for participation in skills development courses under the collective agreement, but with the same salary considering the changes introduced to the labour market by the Covid emergency.
To access the FNC it is necessary to sign a trade union agreement at the company or regional level with the most representative trade unions nationally or the company trade union representatives (RSA) or the unitary trade union representative body (RSU) which identifies:
In addition to the agreement with the trade unions (OOSS), it is necessary to draw up a project for skills development, which identifies the learning objectives, training recipients and providers, and course methods and duration.
Once the trade union agreement and the training project have been finalised, the companies can submit applications to ANPAL, requesting the reimbursement of labour costs (wages and contributions) for the training hours (up to a maximum of 250 hours per worker, to be carried out within 90/120 days).
It should be noted that the implementing Interministerial Decree of 9 October 2020, published on the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies website on 22 October, stated the deadline for signing collective agreements to access the Fund was 31 December 2020.
As announced by Minister Catalfo, there will be an extension that will make this interesting tool usable in 2021.
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Vittorio De Luca, with Antonella Iacobellis and Alessandra Zilla, signed the firm’s contribution on health and safety at work and redundancy fund in derogation for multi-located companies.
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