Management Information Sheet

The School Workforce Census (SWC) is an annual census and a statutory return so it is compulsory for all schools to submit a return. It is a collection of data about each regular member of teaching and support staff working in the local authority, local authority-maintained schools and academies.

The next Department for Education's annual School Workforce Census (SWC) date is on the 5th November 2015.

Each school is responsible for uploading their SWC file into the Department for Education (DfE) Collect system on Thursday 5th November, and all errors and queries must be resolved by Thursday 12th November at the latest. Under the regulations it is the Headteachers responsibility to ensure that the return is both submitted on time and contains accurate data, particularly with reference to the correct pay details being held in your system and that the pay increases for all staff have been applied for 2015, together with increases if applicable to allowance values.

Under the Data Protection Act, all schools must inform their staff that they hold personal data about them. Schools must also explain how they intend to use the data and provide information about who the data may be forwarded to.

To comply with this, your school needs to send a Privacy Notice to all members of staff employed by your school. This includes all teaching and non-teaching staff. If you have previously issued a Privacy Notice to a member of staff you will not need to send another.

It is important to remember to issue a Privacy Notice to new members of staff when they join your school. If a member of staff left your school before the Privacy Notice was issued and your return for the 2015 census will contain data about them, you need to send them a Privacy Notice.

Failure to send out a Privacy Notice to staff means you will not be covered under the Education Act 2005

Many of the data items collected in the SWC are those which a school, or other employer, would be expected to use for its own purposes. The majority of items should therefore be kept up to date as part of normal business processes. Schools are urged to take a look at the data items to be collected in the SWC in advance of the collection to ensure data is entered correctly within their Management Information System (MIS). For the purposes of the SWC, the academic year is defined as the period from 1 September to 31 August.

For a full and comprehensive explanation of each data item, please refer to the full guidance notes which can be found on the DfE website.

Further guidance and helpsheets are available on the Norfolk Schools website. These include details of preparations to make in advance of the SWC. Please ensure you carry out these preparations before completing the return.

After producing the SWC xml file from your MIS, log into the DfE Collect system and upload your xml file using the 'Upload return from file' button. Note that Collect is accessed via the Secure Access login screen. Collect should then be available under 'Your Applications'.

Once uploaded and validated in Collect, please open the return and click on the grey 'All Errors' button to review any queries or errors in your data. Any errors or queries that are generated in Collect must be investigated by the school and the data amended as necessary, either by amending the data at source within your MIS and uploading a new census file, or by manually editing or adding missing data items using the 'Edit' button within Collect. Please note, any manual adjustments must also be made in your MIS. Your file in Collect must not contain any Errors, and all queries must be addressed. If specific Queries cannot be resolved and have a valid reason, then schools may use the Notes facility in Collect to provide an explanation or confirmation, commencing with the Query Number, and followed by wording as per the DfE guidance. Schools will also need to record explanations for validation queries relating to changes from previous returns. All these explanations can be combined in one Note.

Please ensure that you check your file for accuracy before authorisation and submission to the Local Authority. Once you are satisfied with your return, remember to click the 'Submit Return' button to finalise your submission.

Academies have to submit their census directly to the DfE via the Collect system.

The DfE have provided guidance for schools on how to use the Collect system which can be found here.

Please contact your software provider for queries regarding your MIS, including producing the xml census file and how to record staff information for the WFC within your system.

Those schools using Capita SIMS can refer to the SIMS Support pages or contact ICT Shared Services by phone or email:

• telephone: 0845 303 3003
• email: ict@norfolk.gov.uk

Please take account of any communications received from HR which may impact on your SWC.

If you require assistance with Secure Access, Local Authority teams will be unable to assist as the system is maintained by the DfE. This is the same system used to access Key to Success and School to School (s2s) and you will now use this to access the Collect portal to submit your census file. Guidance is available on the login page.

The approver within your school will be able to resolve any access issues (speak to your Headteacher who should be able to advise who has the approver role within your school). They will be able to add Collect to your list of applications if you don't already have it. If you are an approver and require assistance, you will need to contact the DfE using a Secure Access Service Request Form.

The Business Intelligence and Performance Service (BIPS) must authorise all census submissions in Collect by the DfE's deadline. Please ensure you check COLLECT - there should be no Errors in your return, and each query must have either an explanation or confirmation in a Note with the query reference number against it. All the queries can be combined into one Note.

Business Intelligence and Performance Service
Email: BI@norfolk.gov.uk