Guidance

CLA return 2016 to 2017: technical specification

Data submission specifications and validation checks for the children looked after (CLA) return for 2016 to 2017.

• From: Department for Education
• Published: 27 November 2015
• Last updated: 30 March 2017 — See all updates

This publication was withdrawn on 2 August 2019

This document is for the 2015 to 2016 children looked after return. For the current return, visit our guide to submitting data for the annual children looked after return.

Applies to England

Documents

Children looked after by local authorities in England: technical specification for the 2016 to 2017 data collection

Ref: DFE-00298-2015

PDF, 1.96 MB, 42 pages

Children looked after by local authorities return 2016 to 2017: XML schema

Plain Text, 17.1 KB

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Children looked after return 2016 to 2017: validation checks

Ref: DFE-00078-2017

PDF, 1.33 MB, 125 pages

Details

Information about submitting and validating data for the children looked after data return (also known as SSDA903) for the year 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2017.

It is for:

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

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

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 and how we validate the data, is also available.

Published 27 November 2015
Last updated 30 March 2017 + show all updates

1. 30 March 2017

   Updated validation rules. Changes are described in the document’s version history.

2. 2 March 2017

   Updated the technical specification. Added the XML schema and validation checks.

3. 27 November 2015

   First published.