In the family of portable social rights, i.e. attached to the person throughout his professional life, there is the personal training account (CPF), whose success is undeniable, the arduousness, subject to renewed interest with the pension reform, and their little brother: the Citizen Engagement Account or CEC. Despite its very low notoriety, the network of experts and academics Research & Solidarity (R&S) identifies it as one of the levers to promote volunteering in association in an Ifop survey published on Thursday.
Established with the 2016 labor law, known as the El Khomri law, the CEC only really came into force five years later. It is the youth department of popular education and associative life, within the Ministry of National Education and Youth, which ensures the financing, the operational management being the subject of an agreement. with Caisse des Dépôts.
Under 35
The principle: a credit of 240 euros per year within the limit of 720 euros for any activity relating to voluntary work: associative volunteering (subject to conditions), civic service, military reserve or even master of learning. This money can be used, via the CPF, to buy training. For what balance? In the absence of a trend given the youth of the system, the figures communicated by the Caisse to “Echos” allow us to draw some observations.
First observation, only 337,620 people have opened a CEC, very far from the number of French people who commit each year, with an average balance of 248 euros. Another observation that deserves to be analysed, nearly 95% of these openings were made by holders under 35 years of age.
Less than 5 million
On the other hand, we know more about the use of the CEC for holders who have decided to tap into it. From the beginning of 2021 to the end of 2022, the commitment account was used in nearly 23,300 CPF training purchase files with a cumulative educational cost of 26.7 million, including 4.8 million taken from the citizen commitment account alone (4. 3 million actually committed after cancellation). Driver’s license, business creation, English, skills assessment or even office automation: with or without the contribution of euros from the CEC, the top certifications pursued are the same.
In addition to being much younger, those who draw from it are more often job seekers (45% of files against 31%) or women (60% against 49%) than those who use the CPF without this contribution. Even if the proportion of those who say they are employed is identical, they more often report a higher education diploma.