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Children's Data: Collection Management Dissemination |
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02 Data Collections>
School Workforce Census (SWF)
News
- 1 December 2008
The pilot collection for October 2008 closed on 21 November. Of the returns we were expecting, just over 80% have been loaded onto COLLECT and approved by LAs. A further 3% were submitted or loaded, and 17% were outstanding. Thirty-three out of 34 Pilot LAs attempted a return, and 31 out of 34 returned over half of what we expected. Eleven out of 34 LAs made a central return. The effort made by the 2008 pilot LAs in doing this is much appreciated. - 27 November 2008
MIS suppliers have highlighted some issues about the feasibility of making changes to school management information systems to collect the headcount for centrally employed staff in January 2010. No decision has yet been made on how this headcount information will be collected. LAs will be informed as soon as any such decision has been made. - 27 November 2008
The November edition of the newsletter was emailed to SWF LA contacts on 26 November and is available from the LA Support Team Newsletter link under the Resouces section below. - 21 November 2008
Updated guidance (version 5) is now available on this site. - 20 November 2008
The CSV to XML converter is now available via the 'CSV to XML conversion tool' linked in the resources section below.
Resources
- Guidance Notes and FAQs
- Materials to help LAs implement SWF
- LA Support Team Newsletters
- Presentations from SWF workshops
- Legal and business basis for SWF
- Technical Specification
- COLLECT
- CSV to XML conversion tool.
About the SWF
Data on the school workforce is currently collected from a variety of sources, mostly at school aggregate level, and does not provide a comprehensive view of the employment situation in schools, particularly in relation to support staff. The SWF will consist of individual-level records for all staff employed in schools (except occasional staff who have been in school for less than a month and support staff not employed by the school or LA) and will for the first time enable the Department and LAs to conduct detailed analyses of school staffing to inform policy on a wide range of recruitment, retention and staff-utilisation issues.
This is a complex data collection, with data for an LA potentially coming from several different sources. Thirty-four LAs are therefore participating in pilots during 2008 and the remaining LAs will do so during 2009. If the pilots are successful, national rollout will take place in January 2010.
If you have any questions about the content of these web pages or the SWF email the DSG Helpdesk or call on 01325 392626.
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Page updated 1 December 2008
