Guidance

Children looked after return 2019 to 2020: technical specifications

Data submission specifications for the children looked after (CLA) return for 2019 to 2020.

• From: Department for Education
• Published: 15 October 2018
• Last updated: 22 April 2020 — See all updates

Applies to England

Documents

Children looked after by local authorities in England: technical specification to the 2019 to 2020 data collection

Ref: DfE-00217-2019

PDF, 1.59 MB, 48 pages

Children looked after data collection 2019 to 2020 validation checks

Ref: DfE-00218-2019

PDF, 1.09 MB, 124 pages

Children looked after data collection 2019 to 2020: XML schema

XSD, 17.2 KB

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Details

This is technical information about submitting and validating data for the children looked after data return (also known as SSDA903) for the year 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020.

It is for:

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

The information includes:

• a summary of the data items we collect in the return
• an explanation of formats for submitting the data
• a list of validation checks applied to the data return
• XML schema files to format your return

Software suppliers should use the XML schema file to make sure local authorities provide XML data correctly. Note that we will test this schema once we finish developing the children looked after data collection system. If we need to amend the schema after testing it, we’ll publish a new version here.

A guide for local authorities, with detailed explanations of what information to include for each data item, is also available.

Published 15 October 2018
Last updated 22 April 2020 + show all updates

1. 22 April 2020

   Updated 'Children looked after data collection 2019 to 2020 validation checks' and 'Children looked after data collection 2019 to 2020: XML schema'.

2. 1 April 2020

   Coronavirus (COVID-19) update: the children looked after data collection will not open on 1 April.

3. 5 November 2019

   Added 'Children looked after data collection 2019 to 2020: XML schema'.

4. 15 October 2019

   Updated technical specification and validation checks guidance. Changes described in document version histories.

5. 22 July 2019

   Updated technical specification and validation checks guidance. Changes described in document version histories.

6. 15 October 2018

   First published.