Guidance

Early years census 2020: technical specification

Technical specification and validation rules for local authorities and software suppliers preparing for the early years census 2020.

• From: Department for Education
• Published: 18 June 2019
• Last updated: 13 February 2020 — See all updates

This publication was withdrawn on 16 July 2020

These documents are for the 2020 early years census. For the current census, visit our guide to submitting data for the early years census.

Applies to England

Documents

Early years census 2020: business and technical specification

PDF, 453 KB, 43 pages

Early years census 2020: validation rules

ODS, 29.9 KB

This file is in an OpenDocument format

Early years census 2020: validation rules

MS Excel Spreadsheet, 180 KB

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Details

This is technical information about submitting data for the early years census 2020.

It is for:

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

It explains:

• changes to the previous year’s census collection
• what data local authorities should supply at establishment level and child level
• how to structure the data in XML or CSV format
• how to check the data against the validation rules

The validation rules are available in Excel and OpenDocument formats.

Read more about submitting data for the early years census.

Published 18 June 2019
Last updated 13 February 2020 + show all updates

1. 13 February 2020

   Updated validation rules. The version history describes the changes.

2. 18 June 2019

   First published.