School Workforce Census 2024 (SWC) - SIMS

Key Dates for the School Workforce Census

Census Day         07/11/2024

Access DfE guidance about the School Workforce Census here. Including the main changes compared to previous years.

Deadline for submitting your data to the DfE: 6th December 2024

SBP (School Business Professional) and LNT (Leadership Non Teacher) are obtained from a member of staff's contract, so why is SIMS providing tick boxes for SBP and LNT?

Professional panel of Professional Details tab of Focus | Person | Staff

Answer

The DfE required SBP and LNT regardless of whether contacts are being included in the census. Where a school is providing contract data, SBP and LNT can be obtained from staff contracts. However, where contracts are not being provided, another source is needed to obtain SBP and LNT. Hence the introduction tick boxes for SBP and LNT.

Tools | Statutory Returns Tools | School Workforce Census Settings

School's that provide contract data are free to make use of the new SBP and LNT tick boxes, but this will make no difference to the census as SBP and LNT will continue to be obtained from staff contracts where schools have ticked to provide staff contract details.

DfE Issue 1: Validation query 4565Q (Staff member appears to be paid more than the maximum of the local government pay scale, please supply a reason in a return level note)

The DfE validation specification for query 4565Q states that where ('OSP' or 'TAS' ') AND <ContractType> = 'PRM' or 'FXT' or 'TMP', then Base Pay, totalled across contract node should be less that £55,000. This has has changed from £50,000 in the previous year's DfE specification.  

However, the DfE coding of validation query 4565Q has not taken account of this change, so that this validation is incorrectly triggering for salary values between £50,000 and £55,000.

Solution
The DfE has corrected this mistake in their COLLECT validation but will not be correcting this mistake for their school validation.

Guides & Additional help (these are the 2023 documents but no new documents have been produced for 2024 because the changes are so minor) 
The Validation errors and query document -  this is a helpful Excel document which explains in further detail about any errors or queries you may have on your own SWC will be added once it is released by SIMS. 

Click here for the Preparing for the School Workforce Census 2023 Return guidebook 

Click here for a link to several reports we created for schools to help them check their data and make sure everything looks correct

Notepad entries for upload onto Collect

Click here on how to update your pay scales and update them on your system.  The guide is one we created in 2019 but it is still applicable and easy to follow. 

Full DfE breakdown of the data that is collected.

Guide on how to use Collect to upload your return to the DfE

There is a lot of information to digest so please don't forget that our service desk is on hand for any queries as always on 01482 238700, you can send us an e-mail to support@keystonemis.co.uk or even click on the live chat button on our website to speak directly to the support team.