Workforce Census 2023

The School Workforce Census or SWC is necessary to inform the Department for Education of staff pay bills, staff turnover and staff absences.  This guide outlines what data is required for the Workforce Census and shows where necessary data can be entered into ScholarPack.

 

Changes for the censuses

 

Who’s Included in the census?

Who should we include?

Top Tip: All personnel added into ScholarPack that have a current contract will be automatically included in the work force census. To exclude staff, follow the 'Removing staff from the census' section within this article).

The following, if they are in regular service, are examples of those for whom school workforce level data should be returned:

• Teachers employed by the school, both with and without QTS, EYTS or QTL
• Support staff employed directly by the school
• Teachers working at the school who have been supplied by an agency or a local authority if the local authority is acting like a supply agency
• Staff on paid or unpaid absence, whether long or short term
• Teachers on the School Direct (salaried) Programme, the Overseas Trained
• Teacher Programme (OTTP) and the Teach First programme
• 'Teaching Assistants' comprise support staff in the classroom for learning and pupil support (e.g. HLTAs, TAs, special needs support staff, nursery assistants and minority ethnic/bilingual support assistants)
• 'Non Teacher School Leaders' include School Business Managers and other non teaching school leaders

School workforce level data does not need to be returned for the following:

• Temporary staff with service of less than 28 days
• Casual staff without contracts employed on an ad hoc basis
• Trainee teachers 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. Note that 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 last year

Every school will be expected to have a SENCO and to have a headteacher or executive headteacher. If this is a combined role within the school, for example the Head is also the SENCO then a note will need to put on COLLECT for queries 6540Q and 6550Q

On the day details

Headcount data (on the day) is required for supply teachers who have a contract or are employed under a service agreement with a school for less than 28 days (occasional teachers) that are in school on census day.

Headcount data is also required for support staff who are not employed directly by the school or LA who are in school on census day, i.e. contract cleaners or outsourced IT technicians.

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.

Removing staff from the census

If you go to Admin > Personnel > Staff, on each account you will see a note specifying if that account ‘will be included in the workforce census’.

To exclude an account simply click on the green note saying ‘[Account Name] will be included in the workforce census’ and the note will then change to red text saying ‘[Account Name] will be excluded from the workforce census’

 

Data collection in preparation for completing the census

Staff Data Capture Sheets

To ensure your staff data is complete and up to date you can ask staff members to complete a basic personal information sheet. This can be downloaded via Admin>Personnel>Download Data Capture Sheet.

Data held outside of ScholarPack

Some schools may not hold all necessary data in the system to complete the Workforce Census as contract information may be stored on the local authority’s HR or payroll systems - if this is the case please contact your local authority for further advice. If you have partial census data in ScholarPack and have another system (HR/Payroll) that contains the remainder, you will need to contact the DfE help desk to discuss how this should be submitted.

Updating staff workforce data

The majority of the staff information that will be collected for the Workforce Census can be updated in bulk in the Staff Group Updater area, providing the admin user has HR permissions. This can be located in Admin > Personnel > Staff Group Updater. For more information on the Staff Group Updater, see this article: Staff Group Updater

Please Note: When using the Staff Group Updater to input or change contract information this will only affect the Main Contract. Additional contracts must be altered manually via the staff profile area.

Personal Details

To enter or amend details you will need to access a staff member’s profile through Admin > Personnel > Staff > Select a Staff Member > Personal Details (cog next to staff name), or you can alternatively update everyone’s information in bulk through the Staff Group Updater.

• Family name
• Given name
• Former family names (where applicable and available)
• Date of Birth
• Sex
• Disability
• National Insurance Number
• Ethnic Code
• Qualified Teacher Status (QTS/EYTS or QTLS)
• Qualified Teacher Route
• Teacher Number – If a teacher number cannot be located please leave blank and submit a note to the DfE or your Local Authority.
• Higher Level Teaching Assistant Status (HLTA)
• Newly Qualified Teacher (Yes-1st Year, Yes-2nd year, No)

All fields highlighted in red are mandatory and dependent on the staff members role at the school may be collected for the Workforce Census.

 

Contract Data

To enter or edit details you can either

• access each staff member’s profile through Admin > Personnel > Staff > Select a Staff Member > Contracts
• update some fields in everyone’s information in bulk using the Staff Group Updater

See how to edit contracts here: Add, edit or delete a Staff Contract

• It is considered best practice to give each contract a name. You could for example name each contract with the associated job role i.e ‘teacher contract’.
• The census will be collecting all contract data where the end date is after 1st September.
• Each contract must have a base pay (or daily rate) and hours recorded.
• Contracts with neither base pay/daily rate or hours recorded should be regarded as occasional employment and must be recorded in the school level module if the member of staff is present on census day.

Contract Type

• If a staff member has a contract with a school then one of the following values must be selected from the codeset: permanent, fixed term, or temporary.

Contract Dates

• The contract dates must be in the format of DD/MM/YYYY.
• Start date and end date (or blank)

Post

• The classroom teacher post may be used to record teachers on the main or the upper pay range
• Unqualified teachers must be recorded in the post of classroom teacher
• Executive head teacher should be used for a head teacher who directly leads two or more schools in a federation or partnership agreement.
• Support staff based in the classroom for learning and pupil support must be assigned the post of Teaching Assistant.
• School Business Professionals (SBP) must be given this Post.

Role Identifier

• This list is provided directly by the DfE. If a role cannot be located please select the role that has the closest description to your role type.

Date of Arrival in School

• The arrival date must be in the format of DD/MM/YYYY and must be provided for all teachers and teaching assistants that started their current period of continuous service with the school on or after 1 September 2009. Its is optional for other support staff.
• Used to show the start of the current period of continuous service.

Pay Review Date

• For contracted teachers and Agency/SLA teachers this should be the most recent determination of a teacher’s pay since 1st September (the review may not have taken place by the time of the school workforce census, so the previous year's determination should be entered).

Pay Range

• For non-teachers this will be either “National Joint Council (Local Government Services)” or “Other”. For teachers this will depend on their post and whether or not they have crossed the threshold to the upper pay range. Academies that use their own pay range should assign “Other”.
• The Leadership Pay Range should only be used for staff in leadership positions (head teachers, executive head teachers, deputy heads and assistant heads) and not for classroom teachers.

Pay Framework (Leadership members only)

• Contracts starting before 01/09/2014 will default to the Pre 2014 framework, whereas contracts starting after this date will link to the 2014 framework.

Pay Range Minimum and Pay Range Maximum (Leadership members only)

• Every leadership teacher paid on the leadership pay scale will have a basic salary range
  within which they can expect to be paid while they remain in the same post at the same
  school.

Origin (Where From)

• If an employee has a new contract and has not changed job role please ensure you choose ‘Not Applicable – Change of Contract’ from the available options. You will need to supply this information for teachers and teaching assistants if the contract start date is later than the 1st September 2009.

Reason for Leaving

• Reason for leaving is separate from Destination and indicates the reason for a teacher or
  teaching assistant ending their period of employment with the school or local authority.
• Examples include Voluntary Redundancy, Compulsory Redundancy, Left for other
  teaching post.
• Reason for leaving must be provided for all contracted teachers and teaching assistants
  that left during the previous academic year (from 1st September). It is not required for other staff, such as agency staff

Destination

• Required for all teachers and teaching assistants if they have a finished contract and the contract end date is after 1st September.

Daily Rate

• Only required for Agency/SLA teachers. If daily rate is 'Yes' then hours worked per week and FTE hours per week must be provided. If daily rate is provided, no base pay is needed. Top Tip: FTE is the number of hours the staff member would work if they were employed full time in that role, the 'Full Time Equivalent'.

Base Pay

• Please ensure when inputting your base pay that no special characters are used, such as the ‘£’ symbol. The Base Pay is the employee’s gross actual annual salary.
• It should not include any additional payments or allowances.
• The pay of part-time or term time only staff must not be adjusted upwards to the pay of a full-time equivalent member of staff.
• If any elements of the salary are safeguarded these must be reflected in the base pay.
• Necessary for all staff not paid by daily rates.

Safe Guarded Salary

• Only required for contracted teachers.

Category of Additional Payments

• The actual amount paid should be given. Any one off payments should show the amount received in full
• Should include all additional payments earned
• TLR3 payments need to be reported separately from other TLR payments
• This data is not required for the post of 'Other Support Staff'

Additional Payment Amount

• The annual actual amount should be given.

Pay Start Date and End Date

• For TLR3 payments

Hours Worked Per Week

• This number should be no more than one decimal place (e.g. 32.5). The hours per week represents how many actual hours the employee works.
• Hours are recorded as decimal figures, not as hours and minutes (27.5 means 27 and a
  half hours).

FTE Hours Per Week

• This number should be no more than one decimal place (e.g. 32.5). The FTE hours per week represents how many hours a full time person would be completing. FTE hours per week may vary.

Weeks Per Year

• Records the number of weeks per year the member of staff is paid, including any paid holiday.
• If someone is on a term-time only contract for 37 weeks per year but receives their pay in
  twelve monthly instalments, it is 37 weeks not 52 that should be entered.

Absences

Absence data is required for teachers and teaching assistants employed directly by schools. Absence information is optional for agency/service agreement teachers, leadership staff who are not teachers and for 'other support staff'. The census will be collecting absence data for teachers and teaching assistants active during last year.

To enter this data please go to Admin > Personnel > Manage Staff Attendance.

The census will be looking for the first and last day of each absence, working days lost and the absence category for all contracted teachers and teaching assistants.

Information is required on any activity or circumstances, except for training, that takes a
teacher or teaching assistant away from normal duties with their usual employer for half a
day or more.

For help using the Manage Staff attendance module, see this article: Manage Staff Attendance

 

Qualifications

Information is required on the type and subject of certain qualifications held by all teachers and by non-teaching school leaders in regular service. Qualification information is not required for 'Other Support Staff' but some systems may return this data to the department if it is present.

Qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are grouped into levels from entry level to level 8.All qualifications graded Level 4 or above (higher than A-level) should be supplied.

To enter employee qualifications you will need to go to Admin > Personnel > Staff > Staff Profile > Qualifications and click on the black cog. All qualifications provided in the drop down box are supplied directly from the DfE common basic data sets.

The SENCO qualification must be recorded where present for any SENCOs.

Contracted teaching staff will need to declare their class of degree if their school arrival date is from 1st August 2013. For all teachers, the following information is required for previous degrees as well as PGCEs:

• Their initial teacher training qualification for example, PGCE, BEd, Certificate in
  Education
• for those with a PGCE, information on prior degrees
• for those without QTS (or QTLS or EYTS) or those trained overseas, all
  qualifications relevant to their engagement as a teacher
• any subsequent qualifications gained relevant to their job as a teacher that appear on the list below. 

For non-teaching school leaders, information about their degree or about any other qualifications listed below should be provided:

• Post-graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE)
• BEd or other first degree combined with teacher qualifications
• Certificate in Education or equivalent
• Doctorate, for example PhD
• Master’s Degree, for example MSc, MEd
• Postgraduate certificates and diplomas
• Other first degree (that is degrees other than BEd or other first degree combined with teacher qualifications) such as BA and BSc
• Graduate certificates and diplomas
• Diplomas of higher education and further education
• Foundation degrees
• Higher national diplomas
• Certificates of higher education
• Non-UK teaching qualification

For School Business Professionals, details of these qualifications should be recorded:

• Z206 – Level 3 School Administration Foundation Certificate
• Z207 – Level 3 Procurement & Supply Assistant
• Z208 – Level 4 Diploma School Business Management (SBM)
• Z209 – Level 4 SBP Apprenticeship
• Z210 – Level 4 Commercial procurement & supply
• Z211 – Level 4 CIPFA Certificate in Public Sector Asset Management for School Business
• Z212 – Level 5 Diploma SBM
• Z213 – Level 6 Chartered Manager Degree Apprenticeship
• Z214 – Level 7 CIPFA Diploma in School Financial and Operational Leadership
• Z215 – Level 7 Senior Leaders Masters Degree Apprenticeship.

 

School Level Data (Headcounts)

Teacher Vacancies

The census will be collecting information about each vacant or temporarily filled teaching post on census day including:

• Vacancy Post
• Vacancy Temporarily Filled
• Vacancy Advertised
• To input this information you will need to go to Admin > Census > Workforce Census > Vacancies.

Occasional Teacher Headcount

This is an area to record how many members of occasional staff are in your school on Census day, for example, Supply Teachers.

To input this information you will need to go to Admin > Census > Workforce Census > Occasional Teachers

• Input occasional teacher count
• Input other staff head count

If the count is ‘zero’ then please enter 0. If you completed your Workforce Census with ScholarPack last year you may see your count from the previous census when accessing this area please amend this.

 

Completing your census

To complete and download your Workforce Census, go to Admin > Census > Workforce Census

You are able to access this area when the 'Census Status' is showing as Live. 

Validating your census File

Once you have ensured that all necessary information is complete, go to Admin > Census > Workforce Census> Calculate Full Census Return to validate your information. Any errors or queries will be displayed here.

Example:

 

Generating your census file

Once you have checked the validity of your data you will be able to generate a summary of the information in Admin > Census > Workforce > Generate Census Summary. We recommend also printing out this summery so you are able to manually work through each figure and tick off if correct, this can be then signed off by your Head Teacher. Once you are happy that the summary of information is correct, you will need to click on Download Census File from the main census page.

This file will download to your computer (to your chosen destination) and you will be required to either send this information to your Local Authority, or upload directly to the DfE Collect Portal. If you are unsure we recommend you contact your Local Authority for more information.

 

For further advice and support, please see the attached link to the DfE census documentation: DfE Workforce Census