Dear  James Roberts 

Thank you for your recent enquiry which was received on 24/02/2025.

A reply will be sent to you as soon as possible and this should be within
20 working days, as you are requesting information under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000.

Your correspondence has been allocated reference number 2025-0006536 .

Yours sincerely

Department for Education

Ministerial and Public Communications Division

Tel: 0370 000 2288

Web: [1]https://www.education.gov.uk
Twitter: [2]https://www.twitter.com/educationgovuk
Facebook: [3]https://www.facebook.com/educationgovuk

References

Visible links
1. https://www.education.gov.uk/
2. https://www.twitter.com/educationgovuk
3. https://www.facebook.com/educationgovuk

Dear James Roberts 

Thank you for your request for information, which was received on
24/02/2025 09:13 . You requested:   

Dear Department for Education,

I would like to see a breakdown of which Software is used by schools to
return the school census to the department (i.e. their MIS Supplier) as at
the Spring (February) 2025 School Census please.

Please could you provide the following information in an excel spreadsheet
containing the following fields:

1.      LA Number
2.      School ESTAB code
3.      Local authority Name
4.      School Unique Reference Number (URN)
5.      School name
6.      Establishment Type (ie. community School, nursery, voluntary aided
school etc)
7.      Establishment phase (i.e. primary, secondary)
8.      MIS Software Used
9.      Numbers of pupils on roll

Please provide this information from the Spring (February) 2025 School
Census.

Thank you in advance for your assistance

I have dealt with your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000
(“the Act”).

I attach a CSV file containing the following fields: local authority
number; school number; local authority name; school URN; school name;
establishment phase (i.e. primary, secondary); establishment type (i.e.
community school, nursery, voluntary aided school, etc.); software
supplier code; number of pupils.

It is not possible to provide the software supplier name as this
information is not held. However, the included software supplier code
contains the software supplier name in the majority of cases.

The number of pupils on roll information from the spring 2025 school
census will not be available until after the publication of the
[1]schools, pupils and their characteristics statistical first release in
June 2025. When published, the requested pupil numbers at a school level
are available in the school level underlying data - 2024/25 CSV file and
can be joined with other school level information with the school URN as
the matching reference.

When the statistics for 2024 to 2025 are published, you’ll be able to
download school level underlying data - 2024/25 CSV file. You’ll be able
to find this by drilling down to the schools, pupils and their
characteristics: January 2025 page and scrolling down to the additional
supporting files section. You can request email notifications from the
[2]statistics: school and pupil numbers page which will tell you when the
statistics are available.

If you have any queries about the above, or need to contact us
further, please visit [3]https://www.education.gov.uk/contactus and quote
your reference number.

If you are unhappy with the way your request has been handled, you should
make a complaint to the Department by writing to me within two calendar
months of the date of this communication. Your complaint will be
considered by an independent review panel comprising officials who were
not involved in the original consideration of your request. 

If you are not content with the outcome of any such complaint to the
Department, you may then contact the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Yours sincerely

 Jon LEYSHON

 Department for Education

Web: [4]https://www.education.gov.uk
X (formerly Twitter): [5]https://www.x.com/educationgovuk 
Facebook: [6]https://www.facebook.com/educationgovuk

We are the department for opportunity

References

Visible links
1. https://www.gov.uk/government/collection...
2. https://www.gov.uk/government/collection...
3. https://www.education.gov.uk/contactus
4. https://www.education.gov.uk/
5. https://x.com/educationgovuk
6. https://www.facebook.com/educationgovuk

Dear  James Roberts 

Thank you for your recent enquiry which was received on 25/03/2025.

A reply will be sent to you as soon as possible and this should be within
20 working days, as you are requesting information under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000.

Your correspondence has been allocated reference number 2025-0010670.

Yours sincerely

Department for Education

Ministerial and Public Communications Division

Tel: 0370 000 2288

Web: [1]https://www.education.gov.uk
Twitter: [2]https://www.twitter.com/educationgovuk
Facebook: [3]https://www.facebook.com/educationgovuk

References

Visible links
1. https://www.education.gov.uk/
2. https://www.twitter.com/educationgovuk
3. https://www.facebook.com/educationgovuk

Dear James Roberts

Thank you for your request for an internal review of the Department's
handling of your FOI request 'School MIS Supplier from Spring 2025
Census'.

Before we action your request and complete the review (which we are more
than happy to do), I thought it might be useful to clarify a couple of
aspects of the original response.

Firstly, we would like to apologise as the fields listed in the response
as being included in the CSV should NOT have included pupil numbers. As
outlined in the response, the number of pupils on roll from the 2025
spring school census will not be available until after the publication of
the schools, pupils and their characteristics statistical first release in
June 2025.

The reason why the pupil numbers are not able to be included in the
response is because they are exempt under the Act. The exemption which
applies to this information is section 22 which provides for information
to be exempt from disclosure where the information is held by the
Department with a view to its publication at some future date. In this
case, the information you have requested has been pre-announced for
release in June. The publication announcement, alongside the actual data
(when available), is available from the links below:

[1]https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics...

[2]https://www.gov.uk/government/collection...

Section 22 of the Act is a qualified exemption and, therefore, a public
interest test was carried out before the original response was issued. In
doing so the following factors were taken into consideration:

• It is acknowledged that there is a general public interest in
disclosure because of the need for there to be open and transparent
government and that the sharing of information with the public should
be free and open.
• The public interest in permitting the government to publish
information in a manner and at a time of its own choosing is also
important. It is part of the effective conduct of public affairs that
the general publication of information is a conveniently planned and
managed activity within the reasonable control of the public
authority.
• The department had already determined that it will publish the
requested information on its website, has pre-announced the dates for
such publication and the publication is something which is completed
at the same time annually (if you look at the link above, you will
find the pupil numbers for each year back to the introduction of the
pupil level annual school census in 2002).
• It is not reasonable for the government to be expected to release
piecemeal information in advance of its planned timetable and planned
publication, and there is a strong argument in favour of allowing
everyone to view this information at the same time. If it were to
release this information as requested on varying occasions this would
result in partial information being released over a protracted period
leading to potential public confusion and inaccuracy.

The arguments for and against release were therefore considered as part of
the original response and it was our view that the balance of public
interest fell in favour of the maintenance of this exemption in relation
to the information relating to this request. We apologise for any
confusion caused by the omission of this additional detail in the original
response.

As outlined in the original response, once the data from the 2025
collection is published, you will be able to download the school level
underlying data. You will be able to find this by drilling down to the
schools, pupils and their characteristics: January 2025 page and scrolling
down to the additional supporting files section. The pupil numbers will
then be able to be combined with the data included in the CSV file in the
original response by linking on the school URN which is included in both
sources. The link to the 2024 data is below and the pupil numbers you will
be interested

[3]https://content.explore-education-statis...

Should you still wish an internal review to be completed, please let us
know by 7 April and we will be more than happy to arrange that.

Yours sincerely

Jon Leyshon

Collections Ownership & Governance Team
Data Operations Division

E: [4][email address]

[5]gov.uk/dfe | [6]@education.gov.uk | [7]fb.com/education.gov.uk

We are the department for opportunity. Images depicts two pupils running,
an adult learner in a technology class with a teacher, a female pupil
smiling, two pupils taking part in a science experiment, a teacher and
young pupil drawing, and an early year working and toddler engaging in an
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