Agile development of the 'Send data to DfE' service formerly known as Data Exchange

Overview:

Data is vital to the DfE achieving its overall vision of improving educational outcomes.

Across DfE there are a number of different systems for data providers to send this data to us. These date back many years; involve business processes which are manually intensive and that by nature incur ongoing risks to data quality.

We want to:

• reduce the burden placed on data providers when it comes to move data;

• streamline our data collection processes;

• improve the DfE's evidence base to enable more effective policy making;

• spot warning signs more readily; and

• provide better, more timely benchmarking information.

Aims:

The project aims to align our data capture functions and provide modern, automated, joined-up services that provide a consistent user experience for sending data to us in a flexible and scalable way; addressing

• data is not always of good enough quality when it first moves

• data does not enable early detection of issues and quick decision making

• collecting and validating data takes too long and involves significant manual effort within the sector and across DfE

• there are inconsistencies between data in school systems and DfE systems

• feedback and reports from data take too long to be of maximum use to schools

Key stakeholders:

Data Providers including schools, LAs, MATs that have responsibilities to provide data to DfE throughout the year. There are around 90 different data collections ranging from small-scale collections through to the termly school census.

Suppliers of systems across the sector who support data providers return data to DfE.

DfE use the data to assist delivery, assess progress, inform decisions and to evidence that the Department is achieving its ambitions.