Guidance

Children in need census 2016 to 2017: specification

Specification and validation rules for local authorities and software suppliers preparing for the 2016 to 2017 children in need census.

From:
Department for Education
Published
16 October 2015
Last updated
31 January 2017 — See all updates

This publication was withdrawn on

These documents are for the 2016 to 2017 children in need census. For the current census, visit our guide to submitting data for the children in need census.

Applies to England

Documents

Children in need census 2016 to 2017: business and technical specification - version 1.4

Ref: DFE-00275-2015

PDF, 471 KB, 36 pages

Children in need census 2016 to 2017: validation rules - version 1.4

ODS, 14.9 KB

This file is in an OpenDocument format

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Children in need census 2016 to 2017: validation rules - version 1.4

MS Excel Spreadsheet, 22.5 KB

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Children in need census 2016 to 2017: XML schema files

8.14 KB

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Details

This is technical information about submitting data for the children in need census for the period 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2017.

It is for:

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

It includes:

  • changes to the previous year’s census collection
  • what data local authorities should supply at child level
  • how to structure the data in XML
  • how to check the data against the validation rules
  • XML schema files to format your return

Updates to this page

Published 16 October 2015
Last updated 31 January 2017 + show all updates

  1. Added the XML schema files for 2016 to 2017.

  2. Replaced business and technical specification document with version 1.4. The document explains what has changed.

  3. Replaced validation rules document with version 1.4. The document explains what has changed.

  4. Replaced validation rules document with version 1.3.

  5. Updated business and technical specification with version 1.3. Changes reflect the removal of the ‘seen by a social worker’ data item which we are not collecting in this census.

  6. Replaced specification and validation rules documents with version 1.2. The changes are described in the version history of the document.

  7. Updated the census specification and validation rules. The documents' version histories explain the changes.

  8. First published.

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