Education Information Team
Email: census@devon.gov.uk
Date: 16th October 2023
Dear Colleagues,
DfE School Workforce Census: Thu 2nd Nov 2023 Return by: Fri 10th Nov 2023
The statutory School Workforce Census takes place on Thursday 2nd November 2023. 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 using SIMS.net are available via: School Census and School Workforce Census – Support for schools and settings (devon.gov.uk)
Changes to data items for 2023
There are some new data items for this year’s return as well as some changes to existing data items;
- New post of School Business Professional (SBP) – DfE advise that this post should be used for staff with a role of Bursar, Business Manager, Finance Officer, Office Manager, Premises Manager or ICT Network Manager.
Sims users: ESS have advised there will be a new SWC post available within the service term. You will need to select the service term, go to section 5 Posts, open the appropriate post and change the ”SWR Post” to School Business Professional. For further details please see School Business Professionals on our webpage.
- New flag to identify Senior Leadership Team members – this flag should be set to True for Headteachers, Deputy Heads, Executive Headteacher, Assistant Head, Leadership Non Teacher. It should also be set to True where School Business Professionals are formally recognised members of their schools SLT.
Sims users: ESS have advised there will be a new “Senior Leadership Team” panel in the Employment Details section of the staff record. For further details please see Senior Leadership Team on our webpage.
- Destination and Leaving reason to be collected for School Business Professionals and new options have been added to cover SBPs;
- Qualifications data to be collected for School Business Professional with several new qualifications added for the use of SBPs.
- Importance of accurately recording Disability – the DfE advise that in Nov 21 workforce census disability data was not obtained by schools for 53% of teachers, preventing the reliable reporting of the proportion of disabled staff within the workforce. All schools should aim to accurately record a ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘prefer not to say’ response from all employees. Where information as to any disability has not yet been collected, this is recorded as ‘NOBT’ (information not yet obtained). Where an employee declines to provide disability data, code ‘REFU’ (refused) is recorded and returned.
Where complete data has not been achieved, Local Authorities, Schools and Trusts are encouraged to consider how they can improve reporting for the next return. Guidance on how to improve data collection is available in Annex 11 ‘Improving disability data reporting rates: overcoming the barriers’.
For further details on data items please see the DfE Workforce collection guidance available at
School workforce census: guides – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
SIMS users – Fileset
Schools must have upgraded to version 7.212 or above and must have imported the most up to date fileset – 2505 at the time of publication (but fileset 2506 is due to be released soon). If you are a hosted school, Scomis will apply filesets automatically for you. If you encounter any difficulties please contact Scomis on 01392 385300. Non hosted schools will need to download the filesets from the Scomis website and apply themselves School Workforce Census Bulletin 2023 – Frequently Asked Questions (scomis.org)
Teacher Pay Ranges
DfE’s Teachers Pay and Conditions advise that from 1st September 2023 a 6.5% increase will be applied to all pay and allowance ranges and advisory points, with higher increases to some parts of the Main Pay Range to achieve a minimum starting salary of £30,000. All pay uplifts will be back dated to 1 September 2022.
Further information can be found here; Workforce Census – Teachers’ pay ranges information – Support for schools and settings (devon.gov.uk) . As teacher pay generates a large number of queries in the census we recommend schools check their pay ranges in sims to ensure they are correct before running a return.
Missing Contracts
Each year a significant number of schools upload members of staff without contracts. When producing the census in sims, 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 Workforce Member Area Details Report to identify the member of staff (there will be an “x” in the Contracts column in “snapshot on census day”). If they should be included in the census please add a contract or Service Level Agreement. If not, please exclude them from the census (eligible for SWR tick 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.
Further Guidance
Our School Workforce Census guide is available via
School Census and School Workforce Census – Support for schools and settings (devon.gov.uk)
The DfE School Workforce Census guide is available via
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/school-workforce-census
Scomis maintain a School Workforce Census Bulletin website which has latest information on known issues, changes and filesets: School Workforce Census Bulletin 2023 – Frequently Asked Questions (scomis.org)
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)