Federal Learning Account: entry into force at the latest on 1st April 2024

On 19 October 2023, the Chamber has adopted the draft law regarding the creation and management of the Federal Learning Account.

This text provides for the implementation of a digital application called the “Federal Learning Account” (FLA), which will allow employees to have a global sight of their right to training.

This implementation should take place on 1st April 2024 at the latest.

Short introduction to the terms of implementation and use of the FLA.

Update (05.12.2023)! The law of 20 October 2023 regarding the creation and management of the Federal Learning Account was published in the Belgian Official Gazette of 1 December 2023. The terms of implementation and use described below are confirmed.

We are still waiting for clarifications regarding certain points. We will keep you updated as soon as we have more details.

Functioning of the FLA

The FLA is a digital application developed and provided by Sigedis which will contain relevant data in order to identify and manage, among other things :

• the individual right to training (= at least 5 days of training per year as from 2024, for a full-time employee);
• the sectoral rights to training (= number of days of training to which an employee is entitled on the base of a sectoral collective bargaining agreement (CBA), as well as nature and financing of the trainings); 
• the training credit (= number of days or hours of training at the disposal of the employee during a given year);
• the sectoral aspects of the training (= any information regarding the professional training resulting from a sectoral CBA).

The main purpose in this framework is to simplify the employee's exercise of his/her (formal and informal) rights to training. 

Content of the FLA

Employee's data

For each registered employee, the FLA will contain certain data, including:

• His/her identity (family name, name, date and place of birth, address, SSIN);
• Work regime in the framework of which he/she is occupied;
• Competent joint committee or sub joint committee;
• Registration number of the CBA upon which the individual right or sectoral rights to training and the training credit might be based;
• Number of days of training (in days or in hours) to which the employee is entitled during the current year (individual right or sectoral rights);
• Number of days (in days or in hours) of taken training and remaining amount of days of training to take or to postpone to the following year;
• Taken trainings and their relevant basic characteristics in order to identify them (start date, end date, nature, etc.);
• Up-to-date open training credit, in days or in hours;
• etc.

Employer's data

For the employer of the registered employee, the FLA will contain the following data:

• Identification data, including company number;
• Size of the company (in number of workers).

Employer's obligations

As employer of the private sector, you will have the obligation to register certain data in the FLA within the required term.

You will have the obligation, in particular:

• to register, for each calendar quarter, and at the latest in the term foreseen for the DMFA, the employee's data that would not yet be known;
• to adapt the right to training calculated by Sigedis, within 30 calendar days as of the date of communication of the calculation (which takes place on the 1st working day of the calendar year); if Sigedis is unable to make the calculation, the adaptation will have to be made within 30 days as of the communication of this inability (which takes place on the 1st working day of the calendar year);
• to register, for each calendar quarter, and at the latest in the term foreseen for the DMFA, the training taken by the employee during said quarter, its basic characteristics and the number of days or hours of training involved;
• to register the number of days or hours deducted, as the case may be, from the right to training;
• to verify immediately (and adapt if necessary) the current open training credit calculated by Sigedis (= value after deduction of the number of days or hours of training resulting from the individual right, and then the number of days or hours of training resulting from the sectoral rights).

Important note! You will be held liable for the rightness of the registered data. Moreover, if you do not respect some of your obligations, you will be added to a list transmitted by Sigedis to inspection services, among others.

Access and rights of the registered employee

The registered employee will have access electronically to the FLA (including www.mycareer.be).

At the moment of his/her entry into service in your company, and then (at least) once a year, Sigedis will transmit him/her information regarding, among others:

• the existence of the FLA;
• the treated data, the purpose of the treatment, the recipients of the data;
• the retention period;
• the status of the training credit.

This information is sent in the employee's eBox and put at his/her disposal electronically.

Important note! If the employee has not registered an email address on www.mycareer.be, or has not shared it via his/her eBox, it will be your responsibility to provide him/her with the information within a specific time limit.

In any case, the employee has the right to ask you to rectify any incorrect data or to add missing data to the FLA. 

Entry into force

A Royal Decree must yet determine the date of implementation of the measures described above; it should take place on 1st April 2024 at the latest.

You will have to register the data of the employees bound by an employment contract on said date at the latest 6 months after said date.

Note : As of the implementation of the FLA, holding an individual training account will no longer be necessary.

Source: Draft law regarding the creation and management of the Federal Learning Account (DOC 55 3517).