The Court of Auditors recommends the “closure” by 2030 of the Agency which manages the rights and pensions of former miners, and the transfer of its activities to other organizations, taking into account a “structurally declining” population. since the closure in 2004 of the last coal mines in France.
This population, which today represents a little less than 110,000 people – mainly beneficiaries or surviving spouses – “will be halved by 2030 and will die out by 2050”, notes the Court of Auditors in a report published Monday.
The document underlines that “despite efforts to rationalize management”, the fixed costs of the National Agency for the Guarantee of the Rights of Minors (ANGDM) “are experiencing strong inertia and the efficiency of the activity (… ) is deteriorating tendentially”.
Based on this observation, the Court considers that keeping this establishment in operation “will quickly become difficult to justify in order to manage a reduced number of files” and calls, to ensure the continuity of these activities, for decisions to be taken “without delay” .
The report recommends in particular “preparing the transfer of ANGDM activities to the Caisse des Dépôts and the general Social Security system”, as well as a “plan to close the agency by 2030”.
“From the period 2024-2027, a closure plan must be developed and decided, so that the necessary legal and technical acts take place in 2028 and 2029 to ensure these transfers and the abolition of the agency in 2030,” insist the authors of the report.
In detail, the management of program 174 benefits (rights provided for by the mining statute) “could be ensured by the Caisse des Dépôts, which has developed expertise in this area as part of the management of the miners’ retirement plan” .
“On the other hand, health and social action could be transferred to the general social security system” and this mission could be ensured “by the funds located in the former mining areas, taking into account the specificities of the population of the former miners,” the report adds.
The ANGDM currently manages nearly a hundred schemes for the social rights of minors and around twenty health and social action (ASS) services.