Guidance

Alternative provision census 2018: technical specification

Business and technical specification for local authorities and software suppliers to prepare for the alternative provision census 2018.

• From: Department for Education
• Published: 15 August 2017
• Last updated: 16 January 2018 — See all updates

This publication was withdrawn on 31 July 2019

These documents are for the 2018 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 2018: business and technical specification

Ref: DFE- 00239 -2017

PDF, 455 KB, 36 pages

Alternative provision census 2018: validation rules

MS Excel Spreadsheet, 259 KB

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Details

This is technical information about submitting data for the alternative provision census 2018.

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.

Published 15 August 2017
Last updated 16 January 2018 + show all updates

1. 16 January 2018

   Updated business and technical specification. Changes are described in the document's version history.

2. 3 January 2018

   Updated validation rules. The document's version history describes the changes.

3. 27 November 2017

   Updated version of validation rules spreadsheet.

4. 12 September 2017

   Updated validation rules. The document's version history describes the changes.

5. 15 August 2017

   First published.