School Workforce Census
Guidance for Preparation
and
Instructions
for the Spring 2010 Census and
for piloting in 2009
School Workforce Census - Preparations and Instructions 2010 / 2009 v 6.0 79 of 84
CONTENTS
School Workforce Census 1
CONTENTS 2
1. INTRODUCTION 4
1.1 Purpose of this document 4
1.2 Summary of major clarifications / changes made to this document in May 2009 4
1.3 Schools in scope for the School Workforce Census 6
1.4 Rationale behind the School Workforce Census 6
1.5 Staff working for schools that should be included in the School Workforce Census 8
1.6 Staff working for schools for whom individual level data is required 8
1.7 Staff working for schools for whom headcount data is required 9
1.8 Staff working for LAs who should be included & for whom individual level data is required 10
1.9 Individual level data required for staff that work for schools or LAs 10
1.10 School level data is required 12
1.11 Key Concepts and Definitions 13
2. PREPARATION: INITIAL POPULATION OF DATA 15
2.1 Introduction 15
2.2 Data Items required 17
2.2.1 Staff Details module 18
2.2.2 Contract / Agreement module 22
2.2.3 Absence module 31
2.2.4 Curriculum module 34
2.2.5 Qualifications module 37
2.2.6 Vacancies and staff information module 40
3. DATA UPDATING – BUSINESS AS USUAL 43
3.1 Business as usual events 43
3.1.1 Appointment of a member of staff 43
3.1.2 First day of staff absence 45
3.1.3 Staff returning to work 45
3.1.4 Name change, or other change of personal details 46
3.1.5 Staff resignation or departure 46
3.1.6 Change of salary 47
3.1.7 Staff promotion 47
3.1.8 Temporary employment elsewhere 48
3.1.9 Setting up the timetable 48
3.1.10 Gaining Qualifications 49
4. GUIDANCE: COMPLETING THE SCHOOL WORKFORCE CENSUS 50
4.1 Census Dates 50
4.2 What will be collected when? 50
4.3 Snapshot information on Census Day 50
4.4 Continuous data – Absences and Contract history 51
4.5 Minimum versus full data sets 52
4.6 Absences on Census Day 53
4.7 School Summary 53
4.8 Submitting the School Workforce Census Return 53
4.9 Approval of the return 54
APPENDIX 1 56
618G 58
ASC / SLASC / PLASC – Workforce Sections 58
Secondary School Curriculum & Staffing Survey (SSCSS) 58
Survey of Teachers' Pay (OME) 58
Survey of Teacher Resignations and Recruitment (NEOST) 59
APPENDIX 2 60
CODE SETS – SCHOOL WORKFORCE CENSUS 60
Gender 60
Ethnic Code 60
Disability Code 61
QTS Route 61
Contract/Agreement Type 61
Post 61
Pay Scale 62
Regional Pay Spine 62
Spine Point 62
Origin 65
Role 66
Notes on Post and Role: 68
Category of Additional Payment 69
Absence Category 69
Notes on Subject: 73
NC Year Group 73
Qualification Code 74
APPENDIX 3 79
Links to relevant websites 79
APPENDIX 4 80
APPENDIX 5 – GLOSSARY 81
School Workforce Census - Preparations and Instructions 2010 / 2009 v 6.0 79 of 84
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Purpose of this document
1.1.1 This document is aimed at Children’s Services/Local Authorities (LAs), maintained primary, middle, secondary and special schools, City Technology Colleges (CTCs) and Academies so that relevant staff:
· understand the rationale behind and purpose of the School Workforce Census (Section 1);
· are able to populate their systems with the required data for the School Workforce (Section 2);
· are able to keep their data up to date during the year (Section 3),
· are able to participate in piloting of School Workforce data during 2009;
· are able to complete School Workforce Census in Spring 2010 (Section 4).
1.1.2 It is envisaged that this document will be used as a handbook for data entered into Management Information Systems (MIS) of both schools and Local Authorities throughout the year, rather than just as guidance on Census Days.
1.1.3 This document is published on TeacherNet and LAs may choose to use it directly with their schools or amend it to suit their local needs as appropriate. Software suppliers may also find it a useful reference document. References to Schools’ MIS may also be applicable to LA MIS, depending on how the census information is to be returned.
1.2 Summary of major clarifications / changes made to this document in June 2009
1.2.1 Clarifications and changes have been made to this document to take account of feedback from schools and LAs during the pilot process and correct any errors in the previous version. These clarifications and changes are listed below in the order they appear in the document.
1.2.2 Section 1.3.1 has been updated to reflect that there are currently no plans to include PRUs, Alternative Provision and miscellaneous establishments in the School Workforce Census.
1.2.3 The sections on who should be included in the School Workforce Census have been re-written and re-formatted to provide greater clarity. Sections 1.5 and 1.6 describe which staff working for schools should be included and for whom individual level data is required. Section 1.7 describes those staff working for schools for whom headcount data is required and explains that the headcount for occasional teachers has changed from those who were in service on Spring Census day to those in school on Spring Census day. Section 1.8 describes which staff working for LAs should be included and for whom individual level data is required.
1.2.4 Section 1.6.4 clarifies the fact that staff working in extended school service provision should be excluded but staff engaged in the normal running of the school, such as cleaners, should be included regardless of when they work, eg before, after or during the normal school day. Previous advice had wrongly been given that those staff working outside of the normal school day should be excluded.
1.2.5 Some changes have been made to the table in Section 1.9 to help clarify which items are included in the minimum dataset; that Absent on Census Day is only required for the Spring Census and the removal of the Payroll Absence Category. The Payroll Absence Category was included as a free format item to enable a school system to export the absence category as specified by the school’s payroll provider. The Department has no use for this data and so would be in breach of the Data Protection Act if it collected it. Schools are clearly free to continue to use the field to record data if their systems allow it, but unfortunately they will not be able to use the School Workforce Census as a mechanism to transfer this data to their LA.
1.2.6 Section 1.10 explains the school level data required.
1.2.7 Section 1.11.1 (e) explains that the requirement to record absence because of training has been dropped at the present time. Further details are given in Section 2.2.3. Feedback from schools and LAs has indicated that the collection of training in this way is too burdensome at this time. Should they wish to do so, schools and LAs are free to continue to record absence due to training in their MIS, but they are not obliged to do so. Please note that any data recorded on systems as absence due to training will still be extracted from systems and submitted to the Department as part of the Spring 2010 collection, but it will not be reported on.
1.2.8 Reference to the Becta good practice guides has been added to Section 2.1.3, Data Protection and Security.
1.2.9 The descriptions of the data items in Sections 2.2.1, 2.2.2 and 2.2.3 have been re-ordered to match the order they appear in the table in section 1.9.
1.2.10 Section 2.2.2 has been updated to reflect the changing requirement in relation to centrally employed staff that visit schools regularly. Schools no longer need to submit service agreement records but local authorities still need to submit contract records. References to the hours, pay and additional payments data groups have been removed to simplify this section.
1.2.11 A new post of “Teaching Assistant” has been added to Section 2.2.2 and the post code set in Appendix 2. This should be available in management information systems from around November 2009.
1.2.12 A new role identifier code of “Other Premises Staff” has been added to Section 2.2.2 and also the role identifier code set in Appendix 2. This should be available in management information systems from around November 2009.
1.2.13 The change to part-time teachers being paid according to the proportion of the school timetable week which they work is reflected in the advice on what needs to be provided for “hours worked per week” and “FTE hours per week”. Basically, as long these two fields are entered on the same basis – directed hours or school timetable week – there should not be a problem when the two fields are combined to calculate the FTE ratio.
1.2.14 Payroll Absence Category has been removed from Section 2.2.3 and some clarifications have been made to the recording of Last Day of Absence and Working Days Lost to indicate that where an absence is on-going at the time of the Spring Census, then these should be left blank. The requirement to record absence due to training has been dropped and the guidance has been updated to reflect this. Although training has been removed from the absence category code set, it will still be available to schools and LAs for use should they wish to do so – see 1.2.6 above.
1.2.15 Emphasis has been given to the fact that working days lost are only required for sickness absence. It is clear from data submitted that schools and LAs are recording working days lost for other types of absences on their systems. If schools or LAs wish to do this, then clearly they are free to do so. However, they need to be aware that the data may be extracted from their systems and submitted to the Department as part of the Spring 2010 collection, but it will not be reported on.
1.2.16 References in Section 2.2.5 to the offer from the GTC to provide qualifications data to LAs have been removed. This was a one off offer that has now expired. Details are given in Appendix 4 of the GTC web enquiry service available to schools and LAs for checking teacher registration and qualification data.
1.2.17 A new vacancy subject code of “not applicable” has been added for posts such as head or deputy head that have no subject associated with them. Section 2.2.6 explains this and the code set in Appendix has been updated to include this new code.
1.2.18 Occasional Teacher Headcount in Section 2.2.6 has been changed to those in school on Spring Census day rather than those in service on Spring Census day. See Section 1.7.1 for further details.
1.2.19 The Autumn Census date for 2009 has been confirmed in Section 4.1 as 1 October.
1.2.20 Some clarifications have been made to the table in Section 4.3.
1.3 Schools in scope for the School Workforce Census
1.3.1 This covers English schools in the maintained sector and includes Community, Foundation, Voluntary Aided and Voluntary Controlled schools.
· Primary schools, Secondary Schools, Maintained Nursery Schools, Maintained Special Schools, CTCs and Academies;
· Early years settings, independent schools, Non-Maintained Special schools, sixth form colleges, FE Establishments and Service Children’s Education Authority Schools are not included in the scope at this stage. There are currently no plans to include PRUs, Alternative Provision, and miscellaneous establishments either.
1.4 Rationale behind the School Workforce Census
1.4.1 The following factors are the business drivers behind the School Workforce Census:
· it is consistent with the overall vision underpinning the New Relationship with Schools (NRwS) programme which includes:
º collect data once and use many times;
º collection of data should be automatic;
º data collected should be that which a school uses itself or should be justified with a clear business case.
· it assumes that much of the data are already held in school or LA MIS ready for transfer on Census Day and so the need for data entry on the day is kept to a minimum;
· the majority of the data collected on the workforce are those which a school uses itself;
· the data should be kept up to date on an event driven basis (ie data should be amended by the school or LA as soon as it is aware of any change or addition);
· the majority of data collected are as defined in the Common Basic Data Set (CBDS).
1.4.2 The Department has begun a process of reducing and rationalising the number of surveys and data collections currently being sent to schools. The SWF therefore includes data items that are currently being collected via a number of other surveys. The intention is to drop some of these surveys subject to successful piloting and/or dual running.
1.4.3 This Census is particularly directed towards the replacement of five current data collection exercises:
· 618G – the annual survey of teachers in service and teacher vacancies, which takes place in January each year;
· School Census staffing elements – the counts provided by each school, currently within School Census, of teaching and support staff based at the school;
· the Secondary Schools’ Curriculum & Staffing Survey (SSCSS) – a survey on teacher qualifications and curriculum that has been undertaken by a large sample of secondary schools every three or four years;
· the Office of Manpower Economics (OME) survey of Teacher Pay – a survey that is sent directly to a sample of primary and secondary schools each September;
· the annual survey of Teacher Resignations and Recruitment – a survey sent directly to all secondary schools and a sample of primary schools each January by the National Employers Organisation for School Teachers (NEOST).
1.4.4 We are currently investigating what other collections can be rationalised as a result of the SWF, the investigation includes the Annual Service Return and GTC collections.
1.4.5 There are benefits to both schools and LAs from this rationalisation, both in terms of reduced effort to provide the data and in terms of being able to undertake analyses within and across these data sets. More information on the above surveys is provided at Appendix 1.
1.4.6 The submission of the School Workforce Census return, including a set of individual staff records, is a statutory requirement on schools and LAs by virtue of regulations SI2007/1264 made under Sections 113 and 114 of the Education Act 2005. By putting the School Workforce Census on a statutory basis:
· schools and LAs do not need to obtain consent for the provision of information from individual members of the workforce (they must, however, meet their obligations to Data Subjects under the Data Protection Act – see 2.1.3 below);
· schools and LAs are protected from any legal challenge that they are breaching a duty of confidence to staff members;