Education Information Team
Email: census@devon.gov.uk
Date: 28th October 2026
Dear Colleagues,
DfE School Workforce Census: Thu 5th Nov Return by: Fri 13th Nov
The statutory School Workforce Census takes place on Thursday 5th November. We strongly advise schools to do a dry run prior to this date to identify queries with your data. Devon Guidance notes for LA Schools are available via: School Census and School Workforce Census – Support for schools and settings.
Changes to data items for 2026
There are no changes and no new data items for this year’s workforce census.
Bromcom users
Bromcom have confirmed that the workforce census is now available to run. Further information is available via their School Workforce Census Homepage which includes their Workforce Census Guide and Workforce Census Error Resolutions Guide.
Teacher Pay Ranges
The DfE have published School Teachers Pay and Conditions for 2026. As teacher pay generates a significant number of queries during the census we recommend schools check the pay ranges held in their MI systems and ensure they are correct before running a return.
If your school has implemented the new 2026 pay ranges please remember to update the last pay review date for affected contracts.
Further information can be found via;
Workforce Census – Teachers’ pay ranges information – Support for schools and settings
DfE school teachers’ pay and conditions – GOV.UK
Bromcom Users: Administration 250: Teachers Pay Award Update for Bromcom
Missing Contracts
Each year a significant number of schools upload members of staff without contracts. When producing the census, please run the Summary Report and check Table A which states whether you have members of staff without a contract. If there are, check the Staff Details Report against the Staff Contracts Report to identify members of staff missing contracts. If they should be included in the census please add a contract or Service Level Agreement. If not, please exclude them from the census (tick the ‘do not include in census’ box).
COLLECT Credibility reports
The DfE have produced a range of credibility reports in COLLECT to help schools check their data. A summary from these credibility reports will be included in the Education Information Team’s data checking report that will be sent to schools. This will indicate any data that needs to be checked and any additional credibility reports that the school needs to run in COLLECT. As schools are responsible for accurate submissions these reports should be run and queries should be investigated and resolved.
EDIT School Workforce Census Checking Service – School Reports
As you may be aware the Education Information Team undertake a number of quality checks. Any queries will be listed in our ‘Workforce Census Checking Service – School Report’, which will be emailed to your school for your attention. The report will provide details of any queries along with guidance on what action needs to be taken.
Uploading Files to COLLECT via DfE Sign-in Portal
We are aware, that some schools, have in the past encountered difficulties with their COLLECT access. We therefore ask that you check your COLLECT access by logging in to the DfE Sign in Portal as soon as possible. If you encounter difficulties logging in click on the ‘Having problems’ link on the webpage.
Federation schools with single personnel system – change in process
Where a Federation personnel system holds information for all schools within a single system, the school maintaining the personnel information should submit the census return containing all staff records, as in previous years.
Due to difficulties extracting the required information from Bromcom to produce separate returns for each school, we will, once your file has been uploaded to COLLECT, send you the three spreadsheets to complete and return.
Please wait for these spreadsheets as they will be based on the information held in the return in COLLECT.
All other aspects of the process remains unchanged. Full details can be found in our workforce census federations guidance.
Further Guidance
Our School Workforce Census guide is available via Workforce Census – Guidance – all schools – Support for schools and settings
The DfE School Workforce Census guide for school employed staff.
Scomis School Workforce Census Bulletin which has latest information on known issues as well as guidance documents.
If you have any queries, or if this is your first workforce census, please email census@devon.gov.uk and someone from the Education Information Team will contact you to provide support and guidance.
Kind Regards
Education Information Team (EdIT)