Software used to return PRU Census

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Dear Department for Education,

I'm in the process of researching a study into the current state of the MIS software market in England.

I would like to see a breakdown of which softwares are used by Pupil Referral Units to return the annual census to the department, and the number of pupils these softwares are used to manage. Please could you provide this information in an Excel spreadsheet containing the following fields: school number, local authority number, software, number of pupils on roll. I'm reliably informed that this information is held within the PRU Census return (in the SoftwareCode field), though is not a mandatory component; providing this information will prevent me having to make an FOI request to every single school and local authority in England for the information, thus cutting the cost raised on those departments and institutions to provide it. Please provide this information from the most recent complete PRU Census.

Thank you in advance for your help - it is much appreciated.

Yours faithfully,

Dave Kelly

Department for Education

Dear Mr Kelly

Thank you for your recent email. A reply will be sent to you as soon as possible. For information, the departmental standard for correspondence received is that responses should be sent within 20 working days as you are requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Your correspondence has been allocated the reference number 2013 0013044.

Regards

Department for Education
Public Communications Unit
Tel: 0370 000 2288

Web: www.education.gov.uk

Twitter: www.twitter.com/educationgovuk

Facebook: www.facebook.com/educationgovuk

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Department for Education

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Kelly,
RE: Freedom of Information request - Software used to return PRU Census 

Thank you for your request for information, which was received on 22 Febuary 2013. You requested    

    “I’m in the process of researching a study into the current

     state of the MIS software market in England.   

     I would like to see a breakdown of which softwares are used by

     Pupil Referral Units to return the annual census to the department,

     and the number of pupils these softwares are used to manage. Please

     could you provide this information in an Excel spreadsheet

     containing the following fields: school number, local authority

     number, software, number of pupils on roll. I’m reliably

     informed that this information is held within the PRU Census return

     (in the SoftwareCode field), though is not a mandatory component;

     providing this information will prevent me having to make an FOI

     request to every single school and local authority in England for

     the information, thus cutting the cost raised on those departments

     and institutions to provide it. Please provide this information

     from the most recent complete PRU Census.”

I have dealt with your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

A copy of the software information is enclosed; it is taken from the 2012 PRU census. 

The Department holds information regarding pupil numbers, but it is being withheld under Section 21(Information
available by other means) of the Act.  Section 21 exempts information from the right of access under the Freedom of
Information Act if that information is reasonably accessible to the applicant by other means.

Section 21 is an absolute exemption, which means that no consideration of the public interest test is required to
withhold information.

Pupil Referral Unit pupil numbers can be found in the underlying data section of the “Schools, Pupils and their
Characteristics: January 2012” Statistical First Release at
[1]http://www.education.gov.uk/researchands....
Please click on the ‘Underlying data: SFR10/2012’ Zip Archive link and open the
‘School_level_schools_pupils_2012.csv’ Excel file. Column S can be used to filter by school type and column DD
shows the number of pupils on roll. 

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by copyright. You are free to use it for your own
purposes, including for private study and non-commercial research, and for any other purpose authorised by an
exception in current copyright law. Documents (except photographs) can be also used in the UK without requiring
permission for the purposes of news reporting. Any other re-use, for example commercial publication, would require
the permission of the copyright holder.

Most documents produced by a government department or agency will be protected by Crown Copyright. Most Crown
copyright information can be re-used under the Open Government Licence
([2]http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/o...). For information about the OGL and about
re-using Crown Copyright information please see The National Archives website
-[3]http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/infor... .  

Copyright in other documents may rest with a third party. For information about obtaining permission from a third
party see the Intellectual Property Office’s website at [4]www.ipo.gov.uk.

If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me. Please remember to quote the reference number above
in any future communications. 

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 letter.  Your complaint will be considered by an
independent review panel, who were not involved in the original consideration of your request. 

If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint to the Department, you may then contact the Information
Commissioner’s Office. 
Your correspondence has been allocated reference number 2013/0013044. If you need to respond to us, please visit
[5]www.education.gov.uk/contactus, and quote your reference number.

Yours sincerely,

Laura Selby
Data and Statistics Division
[email address]
[6]www.education.gov.uk

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References

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Dear Department for Education,

Thanks for providing this information.

Yours faithfully,

Dave Kelly