CARIF-OTEF: three years on from its creation, it’s been a flop!
Established in June 2023 to improve access to training and better meet the needs of businesses, CARIF-OTEF was short-lived. Undermined by recurring administrative and budgetary shortcomings, the public interest group is currently in the process of being wound up.
Inaugurated in May 2024 in Bellevue, in the presence of the then Prefect, Vincent Berton, and President Louis Mussington, ‘Saint-Martin Compétences – CARIF-OTEF’ was set to become an indispensable resource for employment and training in the territory. Behind this acronym lies the Centre for Training Promotion, Resources and Information (CARIF) and the Territorial Observatory for Employment and Training (OTEF) were tasked with identifying training opportunities, analysing the needs of businesses, supporting employment professionals and compiling all this information into an online catalogue.
An organisation that failed to deliver on its promises
The dissolution of the organisation was voted through at its last general meeting on 19 August and formally approved by the Executive Council on 15 October. In addition to breaches of regulatory, administrative and budgetary obligations, the director resigned in June. Whilst the exact nature of these shortcomings is not detailed in the resolution, they were sufficient to precipitate the end of this organisation, which was jointly funded by the State and the Collectivité.
CARIF-OTEF had only three staff members, including two contract staff employed by the Collectivité and one employee recruited directly by the organisation.
The liquidation, which took effect retroactively from 1 July, will continue until 31 December. A liquidator from the Regional Directorate of Public Finance has been appointed to settle debts, recover outstanding payments and finalise staff matters.
According to the minutes of the August general meeting, the provisional liquidation budget amounts to €66,558, of which €34,500 is for the contractual employee’s remuneration, €29,832 for the liquidator and €2,226 in allowances for the GIP’s accounting officer. Only the employee is expected to be made redundant, as the fixed-term contracts of the other two staff members expire on 30 September and 31 October.
The document also mentions a balance of €329,373.75 as at 30 June 2026, IT equipment valued at €8,570 and €110,544 in government grants received.
However, these figures alone do not allow us to assess the total cost of CARIF-OTEF since its creation, nor to determine the proportion actually borne by the Collectivité.
How much has the Collectivité spent on the running of CARIF-OTEF since 2023? What proportion of the available balance will actually be recovered once the accounts have been finalised? And, above all, what additional resources will need to be mobilised to carry out the tasks that have now been brought in-house? Indeed, CARIF-OTEF’s tasks must be taken over internally by the Collectivité’s departments. An agreement with the State must set out the financial arrangements. In other words, what had justified the creation of a specific body in 2023 must now be brought back under the Collectivité’s remit. A.B
