OFPPT Special Training Contracts (CSF): A Guide for CEOs and HR

What is a special training contract, from management’s point of view?

It is a contract under which OFPPT covers part of the cost of the continuing training a company organises for its employees. For management, it is first of all a budget lever backed by a tax the company already pays.

OFPPT, the Office de la formation professionnelle et de la promotion du travail, is Morocco’s public vocational training office. Alongside its own training institutes, it manages the continuing training of employees, and special training contracts (contrats spéciaux de formation, CSF) are the scheme through which it reimburses companies. The legal basis is Law No. 60-17 on the organisation of continuing training, enacted by Dahir No. 1-18-94 of 5 October 2018. The scheme rests on three elements a general manager should know before signing off a training budget.

• Pooled funding. The continuing training budget managed by OFPPT includes a percentage of the proceeds of the vocational training tax (taxe de formation professionnelle, TFP), the tax levied on employers for the benefit of OFPPT (Law No. 60-17, art. 23). A company that never files a claim therefore contributes to the funding without benefiting from it.
• A dedicated manager. Continuing training is managed by OFPPT independently of its other missions (art. 12). A permanent administrative unit receives and reviews funding applications, signs the contracts, monitors delivery and carries out checks (art. 17). Its missions are incompatible with the Office’s other missions (art. 18).
• A manual that sets the rules. Funding terms and conditions are set by a procedures manual approved by OFPPT’s board (art. 19). That manual, not a sales brochure, is the reference.

What the law changed, and what still depends on implementing texts, is covered in our article Law 60-17 and the CSF: what changed, what remains to be confirmed.

The manual in force remains the May 2006 manual, amended by Amendment No. 2 of 2 June 2014; the law keeps it until it is replaced (art. 32). OFPPT’s CSF page (in French) presents the scheme, and the manual can be downloaded from its private companies section.

For a general manager, the key point lies elsewhere. The CSF is not a grant you apply for afterwards, when the invoice arrives. It is a scheme that rewards an organised company: one that knows, before the financial year starts, whom it will train, in what, why and at what cost. The most expensive scenario we see is not the rejected file. It is the file that was never opened.

Which training and which employees can the CSF cover?

The law covers employees subject to the Labour Code and the staff of public establishments and enterprises subject to the TFP (art. 4), for a broad range of actions (art. 7). The eligibility of each action remains set by the procedures manual.

Employees covered

Continuing training covers employees subject to Law No. 65-99 on the Labour Code, as well as the staff of public establishments and enterprises subject to the vocational training tax (art. 4). Self-employed people in private activity and employees who have lost their job benefit instead from special programmes organised for them (art. 3 and 4), outside the company’s plan.

For the Moroccan subsidiary of a foreign group, the reference points are the same: the law looks at employees subject to the Moroccan Labour Code, and the ceiling is calculated on the training tax declared by the Moroccan entity. As for any company, OFPPT requires the Moroccan employer to be subject to the TFP and up to date with CNSS for that tax.

During training, employees keep their salary and their other rights (art. 5). For management, the real cost of a course therefore includes the working time involved, which the reimbursement does not cover. The manual calculates reimbursement on the retained cost set by the cost schedule, or on MAD 800 per day per participant for in-house training: participants’ salaries are not part of it.

Actions covered by the law

Article 7 distinguishes training operations proper from the activities treated as training. The table links them to company situations and to the scheme usually targeted.

Who can deliver the training

Training is delivered by public institutions, by private consulting and training providers, or by companies themselves when they train their own employees (art. 9). This last category is the basis for in-house training. Qualification conditions are set by regulation, and qualification can be withdrawn from a provider that fails to meet its commitments (art. 30). The CSF procedures manual specifies who may deliver the actions: the company itself if it has the necessary skills, private consulting and training providers subject to the TFP and up to date with their declarations, and public training bodies. For third-party payment, Amendment No. 2 also requires a public provider or a consulting and training provider holding a valid qualification label awarded by the Department of Vocational Training.

What the CSF does not cover matters just as much. In a certification project, the certification body’s audit, site works and consulting as such are not training actions. Our articles on BRCGS consultancy cost and FSSC 22000 certification cost separate the cost lines one by one.

How much does OFPPT reimburse, and why is a rate not an amount?

The reference rules are 70% for planned training delivered by an external provider, 40% for unplanned training and, for in-house training, the same rates applied to a retained cost of MAD 800 per day per participant, within ceilings set according to the declared TFP. These rules are those of the CSF procedures manual of May 2006 and its Amendment No. 2 of 2 June 2014; any resulting amount is indicative, before ceilings, with no commitment.

The amount finally reimbursed depends on four variables. Only one remains in the company’s hands once the session is over: the quality of its file.

Three consequences for general management:

1. Budget the full cost. Reimbursement is probable income, never certain income. It goes into the budget as a forecast, separate from the cost of training.
2. Compare quotes on the simulated remaining cost. Two proposals at the same price can lead to different remaining costs, depending on the type of action and the quality of the evidence the provider supplies.
3. Reject any guaranteed amount. No provider can announce the amount OFPPT will set after review. A proposal that does so is a warning sign.

To read the rule step by step, with a fictional worked example and its limits, see CSF reimbursement rates: reading the rule, the ceilings and the TFP. The reimbursement simulator applies the same reference rules, before ceiling.

What role does GIAC play alongside the CSF?

GIAC funds training engineering; the CSF funds the training actions. The two combine: the engineering prepares the plan, and the CSF reimburses part of its delivery.

GIACs, which the law refers to as “groupements interprofessionnels à l’appui du conseil”, inter-professional advisory groups (art. 32), are associations set up by employers’ professional organisations, usually by sector. They are tasked with information and awareness actions, training strategy studies, engineering studies and the drafting of plans (art. 20), under statutes whose model is set by regulation (art. 21). They act under funding agreements with OFPPT, provided they are accredited by the administration (art. 22).

Under the GIAC manual and its Amendment No. 1 of 2 June 2014, the GIAC reimburses 70% of the cost of training engineering excluding tax, 80% if it follows a strategic study validated by the GIAC and 100% for sector-wide engineering, within a reimbursement cap of MAD 100,000. Before any commitment, check the eligibility conditions and the application procedure with the GIAC for your sector.

For management, the issue is the order of operations. Take a packaging manufacturer in Kenitra preparing a new training year. If it first has the eligibility of its needs analysis confirmed by the GIAC for its sector, the analysis leads to a plan, and that plan feeds the year’s CSF files. If it orders the courses first and looks for funding afterwards, it loses most of both schemes. How the CSF and GIAC combine is set out on our page OFPPT special training contracts (CSF) and GIAC funding.

Who does what in the company?

The CSF is not a file for HR alone. Management arbitrates, HR leads, line managers express needs and release their teams, finance supports the payments and the training provider produces the session evidence.

The training year then follows a simple rhythm. Before the year: needs analysis, plan, management approval, filing of applications. During the year: sessions, evidence, tracking actual against planned. Afterwards: reimbursement files, follow-up of the review, annual review, archiving. The deadlines for filing the plan and the files should be confirmed with OFPPT for each financial year.

For the Moroccan subsidiary of a group, this is the calendar to follow, whatever the group’s own training cycle: the CSF files are those of the Moroccan entity, whose declared TFP sets the ceiling. The detailed process, step by step, with the evidence to keep for each session, is covered in our article OFPPT CSF application step by step.

What risks must management control?

The first risk is losing a reimbursement. The second, more serious, is having to repay what was received. The law organises inspections and sanctions that every management team should know.

• Inspection. Funded actions are checked by sworn officers delegated by the administration, on documents and on site (art. 26). They draw up a report on each inspection and, in case of a serious offence, an official record with the same evidential force as those of the judicial police (art. 27).
• The duty to produce documents. The employer, like the training provider, must give inspectors all useful information and documents (art. 28).
• Cancellation. A breach of commitments leads to the partial or total cancellation of the action and, where applicable, the automatic termination of the contract (art. 29).
• Repayment. Anyone who unduly benefits from the amounts allocated to an action must repay them, failing which criminal proceedings may follow (art. 31).

For a company whose files are in order, these rules change nothing day to day. They simply remind you that an incomplete attendance sheet or a missing certificate cannot be rebuilt on the day of the inspection. Groups based outside Morocco tend to see the CSF as a grant; it is also a compliance matter, and it belongs in the same conversation as the subsidiary’s other legal obligations.

Questions a general manager should ask HR

• Is the year’s plan approved, dated and earlier than the first session?
  
• Is each action linked to a job role and an identified need?
  
• Is the target scheme identified action by action: planned, unplanned or in-house training, or GIAC engineering?
  
• Is the remaining cost simulated, with no amount presented as certain?
  
• Have the applicable procedures manual and its deadlines been checked with OFPPT?
  
• Are the selected training providers qualified within the meaning of article 9?
  
• Is the evidence for each session produced during the session, not rebuilt afterwards?
  
• Does someone follow each file through to payment?
  
• Are the documents archived and retrievable in case of inspection?
  
• Does the year’s review feed the next plan?
  

Do it yourself, get support or train your team: how do you choose?

The choice depends on the volume of training, the expertise available in-house and the level of risk management is willing to accept. Many companies start with support, then bring the work in-house.

The questions general managers and HR directors ask most often are gathered in our FAQ on OFPPT special training contracts.