FAQs and Known Issues for DfE School Workforce Census Thu 4th Nov 2021
1. Frequently asked questions – national tutoring programme, COVID
Question: do tutors coming into a school to lead the national tutoring programme need to be included in the workforce census? If so, should they be added with a service agreement or included in the occasional teacher on census day?
Answer: yes, tutors on the national tutoring programme should be recorded in the workforce census. Where they have a contract for 28 days or more then a school should complete individual level data for them, as either a teacher or a non-teacher. If their contract is for fewer than 28 days then if they’re a teacher they should be recorded as an occasional teacher, if they’re not a teacher they should be included in the third-party support staff headcount if they are employed via a third-party service agreement.
Question: what’s the advice about COVID related absences for the workforce census? For example, if they are sick because they have COVID, or isolating either due to contact with someone or as being clinically vulnerable.
Answer: for COVID related illness record absences as sickness. For any other COVID related absence, such as self-isolating or shielding, where the staff member is unable to work record them as ‘other paid authorised absence’, unless they aren’t being paid in which case use ‘unpaid authorised absence’.
Question: should members of staff working at home be recorded as absent?
Answer: No, where a staff member is working from home, whether for COVID related reasons or not, they should not be recorded as absent.
Question: as the Early Career Framework (ECF) is a new programme, for this census is it correct that no one could be in their second year?
Answer: yes, that is correct, the ECF programme began in September 2021
2. Known Issues – sims users
The following known issues will be fixed by the English Consolidated Database Patch 2 which is currently being worked on;
Multiple copies of a contract for a member of staff
Where a member of staff has multiple pay records during the collection period, contract data is incorrectly being included in line with the number of pay records. Where this occurs, the following validation rules are likely to be triggered;
- 4745Q: Member of staff is working more than 48 hours a week.
- 6530Q: The same person has a total Full Time Equivalent ratio greater than 1.5
Workforce Member Payment Details Report includes teachers who have left
This is report is displaying information for members of staff who left on or after the continuous contract start date, when it shouldn’t as payments are not included in the census for leavers. This reporting issue does not impact on the actual data included in the census return, as the report displays data directly from the sims database rather than the census return file.
QTS Route options currently active in sims but not an option for workforce census
The following QTS route options are currently set to active and so can be selected for a member of staff, however the options are not valid for the workforce census;
- ITEU: Initial Teacher Education – Undergraduate course
- ITEP: Initial Teacher Education – Postgraduate course
The patch will set these two options to ‘inactive’ so they can no longer be selected for a workforce member.
The following known issues will be fixed by Fileset 1908 which is currently being worked on;
Qualifications data for staff who have a fixed term contract open on census day
Where a member of the school workforce has a status that indicates that their qualification data should be included in the census, they are not being included when the have a fixed term contract that is open on census day.
3. Change in staff categories
Staff categories determines which data items are included for an individual member of staff and output in the workforce census file. Categories are based on contract types and posts held, as indicated below;
Contracted Teacher |
Agency/SA Teacher |
Contracted Teaching Assistant |
Leadership, Non-teacher |
Other Contracted Support Staff |
|||
Contract Type (N00542) |
Contracts |
PRM, FXT, TMP | n/a | PRM, FXT, TMP | PRM, FXT, TMP | PRM, FXT, TMP | |
Service Agreements |
n/a | SLA, SAG, SOT | n/a | n/a | n/a | ||
Length of Contract |
=> 28 days | => 28 days | => 28 days | => 28 days | |||
Post (N00577) |
Any value other than LNT/OSP/TAS/AVT | TAS | LNT | OSP | AVT | ||
Staff categories are allocated on a hierarchy system, so for example, if a member of staff has a contract as a teacher and contract as a member of the support staff, they would be allocated to the contracted teachers category. This category includes certain data items that would not be required for ‘other support staff’.
Rank |
Category |
| 1 | Contracted Teachers |
| 2 | Agency / SA Teachers |
| 3 | Teaching Assistants (TAS) |
| 4 | Leadership Non Teacher (LNT) |
| 5 | Other Support Staff (SOP/AVT) |
ESS advise that historically when allocating staff categories they previously only took into account contracts that were open on census day. After consultation with the DfE they are now also taking into account contracts that closed during the collection period. The change in approach should have no direct impact beyond allocating members of staff to particular categories, but allocation to a particular category then impacts on the data included for the member of staff.
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)