Department for Education
Tel: 0370 000 2288
www.education.gov.uk/help/contactus
Date: 28 August 2014
To local authority and academy
school workforce census
contacts
School workforce census 2014: early warning letter
The purpose of this note is to provide school workforce census (SWF) contacts in both
local authorities and academies with important information in readiness for the 2014
collection. It provides some basic information about the SWF including arrangements
around COLLECT familiarisation, scheduling arrangements, and also details of where
further guidance can be found.
The school workforce census is statutory. All publically funded schools must complete a
return. This includes local authority maintained schools, academies, free schools, studio
schools, university technical colleges (UTCs) and pupil referral units (PRUs). Local
authorities must make a return for the school staff that they employ centrally.
The collection:
•
opens on Thursday 6 November 2014
•
closes on Friday 5 December 2014.
You are strongly encouraged to make your return as soon as possible after the opening of
the collection to allow time for data cleaning. All returns must be approved by 5 December.
You can find more information, including instructions for schools, academies and local
authorities to complete the school workforce census 2014 on our website. The collection
guide will be published shortly, as will the COLLECT guide.
Changes from 2013
The most significant changes from last year’s collection are those which reflect the
abolition of statutory pay spines and points. As a result the provision of ‘Base Pay’ has
been made mandatory. More details will be available in the collection guide.
How to make a return
You should submit your data using COLLECT, our centralised data collection and
management system. A separate COLLECT guide will be available to help you use the
system to complete and submit your return.
You should contact your Secure Access approver(s), if you need a username and
password to submit data for the SWF 2014 collection.
User names and passwords for COLLECT are managed by the Secure Access system.
Your school or local authority has a delegated approver(s) who can allocate you access to
departmental systems that use Secure Access.
More information is available on the Secure Access help screen.
You can also get help using the Secure Access service request form
COLLECT availability
A familiarisation site will be available for training purposes and to perform “dry runs” on 2
September. User guides and test data can be found by clicking on “COLLECT training
guidance” in the resources section of the web site:
All users will have access to the live site from 7:30am on 7 November. We will not be
staging access to the COLLECT for this data collection.
CSV to XML conversion tools
We have developed two tools to convert the data into the required xml format: one for
school employed staff and one for centrally employed staff. The zipped files for each
conversion tool include an excel template, the converter, the user guide and test data will
be made available on the data collection website.
Only those local authorities and academies with non-standard HR/payroll systems or
school MIS unable to provide data in the correct format for submission to COLLECT will
need to use these conversion tools.
Access database
Local authorities will be able to upload data from the SWF COLLECT system into an
updated Access database template and then perform queries on the data. The database
file will be populated from comma-separated files of survey data generated on request by
COLLECT. The key function of the database in conjunction with the COLLECT system is to
provide LAs easy access to their data in one place.
Background
The census is the department’s sole source of school workforce data.
School workforce data and statistics are a key part of the department’s evidence base for
policy making. Releasing data at national and local level, including through the
performance tables, is a key part of our publication strategy that supports the government’s
wider transparency agenda.
The data collected is vital for the monitoring of school workforce volumes and
characteristics which are vital in helping inform departmental policy around the recruitment
and retention of teachers; for example informing decisions around spending on ITT and
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Bursaries. The data is also used to provide analysis that informs the School Teachers’
Review Body deliberations on teachers’ pay and to negotiate with the Treasury over
spending review decisions.
The data enables comparison of practice and deployment of workforce across schools –
and is made available through the extended performance tables to help people do so. In
addition, we utilise the information to make comparisons with other international systems.
The department also makes elements of the data available to other government
departments and the research community to help facilitate wider analysis to inform
evidence based policy and practice in education.
The annual school workforce statistics are published each year in April (national headlines)
and in July (a broad range of school level school workforce data).
In addition the SWF is used to provide the workforce information provided in the school
performance tables.
Further updates
We will continue to publish and update information and guidance on the website as it
becomes available.
We will also be issuing further email updates as required before and during the collection
period for the SWF 2014.
General issues
If you have any COLLECT or SWF queries of a general nature, please contact us by using
the service request form
Kind regards
Education Data Division
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