Guidance

Alternative provision census 2016: technical specification

Business and technical specification for local authorities and software suppliers to prepare for the alternative provision census 2016.

• From: Department for Education
• Published: 20 July 2015
• Last updated: 24 December 2015 — See all updates

This publication was withdrawn on 31 July 2019

These documents are for the 2016 alternative provision census. For the current census, visit our guide to submitting data for the alternative provision census.

Applies to England

Documents

Alternative provision census 2016: business and technical specification, version 1.4

Ref: DFE-00218-2015

PDF, 691 KB, 34 pages

Alternative provision census 2016: validation rules, version 1.8

MS Excel Spreadsheet, 210 KB

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Details

This is technical information about submitting data for the alternative provision census 2016.

It’s for:

• suppliers of software for school and local authority management information systems (MIS)
• local authority users of MIS software

The specification describes:

• what data local authorities should supply
• how to structure the data in XML

Software suppliers should use the list of validation rules so that local authorities can validate the data they submit.

You should also read the common basic data set (CBDS). This defines common data items that schools use in MIS software and that we use in our data collections.

More guidance on submitting data for the alternative provision census is available.

Published 20 July 2015
Last updated 24 December 2015 + show all updates

1. 24 December 2015

   Updated the validation rules document. See the document's version history for description of changes.

2. 1 December 2015

   Updated the validation rules document to version 1.7. Changes are described in the version history within the document.

3. 27 November 2015

   Updated technical specification to version 1.4. Changes are set out in the document's version history.

4. 28 August 2015

   Updated the validation rules document. Change is described in the document's version history.

5. 12 August 2015

   Updated the validation rules document. Changes are set out in the document's version history.

6. 4 August 2015

   Updated the business and technical specification and validation rules documents. Changes are set out in the documents’ version histories.

7. 20 July 2015

   First published.