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Administration and finance

Workforce Census – guidance summary – all schools


Autumn 2024 summary

Census Date: Thu 2nd Nov                  

Census Deadline:  Fri 10th Nov

The guide will be updated when DfE publish their workforce census guide for schools.

Changes from 2023

  • Sex has replaced gender in the data collection. The DfE advise that ‘sex’ is the sex recognised in law, as recorded on a birth certificate or gender recognition certificate. This will be the same value that is reported to the HMRC, as legal sex can affect pension ages or National Insurance contributions. Software suppliers can map previous values of ‘Gender’ to the new field of ‘Sex’, but should alert data suppliers that this change has been made. Schools and local authorities will not be asked by the department to re-obtain sex information from staff.

Data Collected

Staff level information being collected for members of staff in regular service;

  • Staff Personal Details – all staff
  • Contract and Service Agreement Details – all staff
  • Payment Details – all staff
  • Absences (2023/24 academic year) – Teachers and Teaching Assistants only
  • Curriculum Details – secondary schools only – subjects taught by Teachers and Teaching Assistants in regular service during census week
  • Qualification Details – all teachers, School Business Professionals and non–teaching school leaders, not required for ‘other support staff’ but can be returned if present, please see Annex 4 Qualifications for further information

Contracts and service agreements:      between 01/09/23 and 07/11/24 (inclusive)
Absence details:                                    between 01/09/23 and 31/08/24 (inclusive)
Additional payment details:                   between 03/11/23 and 07/11/24 (inclusive)

School level information being collected as a snapshot on census day;

  • Current Teacher vacancies
  • Headcount of Occasional (Supply) Teachers employed on census day
  • Headcount of Third Party Support staff, e.g. outside contractors for cleaning

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