School Workforce Census Autumn 2018

With November rapidly approaching and the half term break just around the corner it’s time to start looking forward to the School Workforce Census Autumn 2018.

Here you are going to find the how to guides, and some of the more common queries and issues for this years’ return. You’ll all be happy to hear, that currently there’s no need to import a new fileset if you have the latest one from the School Census – Fileset 1006. Click here if you haven't. Our preparation documentation is now available for you to download via the links below.

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Which staff to include and to exclude:

A common question that we are asked is who should be included. The guidance is as follows.

Data does not need to be returned for the following if they are not in school on the census day:

• temporary staff with service of less than 28 days and who are not expected to complete service of 28 days or more
• casual staff without contracts employed on an ad hoc basis. If these staff are in school on census day then head count data should be reported for them
• Data does not need to be reported for the following staff, even if they are in school on census day
• PGCE students on teaching practice
• trainee teachers on a School-Centred Initial Teacher Training (SCITT) programme
• staff working in extended school service provision, for example breakfast and after school clubs, Sure Start and Children’s Centres.

Please note: staff engaged in the normal running of the school, such as cleaners, must be included regardless of when they work, for example before, after, or during the normal school day

• staff employed by the local authority that provide support to schools for example peripatetic music teachers, advisory teachers, educational psychologists, educational welfare officers (information on these will be submitted by the local authority)
• governors and voluntary staff
• staff for whom there is no role identifier code that equates to the function they carry out, for example clerk to governors, school crossing patrol staff and school improvement partners
• staff whose contracts finished prior to 1 September 2017

Multiple records across a MAT

More than one record for an individual member of the school workforce would be returned in the school workforce census in the following instances:

• when a person is in regular service at more than one school, either via a contract or, for teachers, employed under a service agreement. For example a teacher who works two days a week in one school and three in another would need more than one record. Both schools would be expected to submit a record that reflects the time spent by the teacher in their school
• when a person, teacher or support staff, ceases working at one school and begins working at another school during the period covered by the census (1 September 2017 to 8 November 2018). Both schools would be expected to submit a record that reflects the time spent in their school during that period
• A school or local authority may need to submit information for a member of staff for more than one contract, or period of employment under a service agreement, in the school workforce census.

  This would happen when

  • they have more than one current contract, or are engaged to work at the school under more than one service agreement, at the Census day in one school. For example they have one part-time contract with the school as a midday supervisor and another part-time contract as an administrator, or
  • they have one current contract, or are engaged to work at the school under a service agreement, at the Census Reference Date and finished another period of regular service in the previous academic year. For example, they were promoted on 1 January 2018 from deputy head teacher to head teacher and so both the old deputy head teacher contract and the current head teacher contract would be returned

In these cases there should be two contract or service agreements recorded for that school workforce member. There should never be two school workforce member records for the same individual in one return.

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Staff on Zero Hour Contracts

Another common query we have is on Zero Hour contracts which can cause a variety of queries and errors as the system does not like you putting in a contract with no hours.

The following is the guidance from the DfE on how to handle this:

Hours for staff on zero hours contracts should reflect the hours they work in a typical week and base pay should be calculated in line with those hours. Where it is not possible to determine the hours worked in a typical week then the staff should be recorded in the occasional teacher count if they are present on census day. If it is not possible to determine a typical week and the staff are not present on census day then they should be omitted from the census return.

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And that’s all from us on the Workforce, if you have any issues please don’t hesitate to contact the Service Desk on 0345 222 1551 • Option 3 or email MISservicedesk@schoolbusinessservices.co.uk