Scottish Government

SEIAG 02/6 - SCOTXED: MANAGING THE DATA EXCHANGE MAINTENANCE PROCESS

The attached paper proposes a strategy for liaising with partners to maintain and develop the Data Interchange Agreement (DIA) - the standard for data exchanges. An earlier version was presented to LA contacts during the March round of meetings. LA contacts were basically sanguine about the proposals, recognising that the work needed doing and wanting to do it as efficiently as possible. They asked that we try to identify other task groups who might be working in the same field and that we check within SEED to identify SEED's priorities and come back to them with a specific plan. The management of the process did not appear to concern them. The appendix to the paper proposed a number of DIA maintenance tasks. No other major tasks were identified in the meetings.

The Project Board met to discuss the paper in detail and now makes the following comments and proposals for SEIAG's consideration.

1. The overarching group is defined in the paper as the DIA Maintenance Group. It should be representative of the partnership. Its purpose is to approve alterations to the DIA to meet data exchange needs, based on proposals from task groups and guided by technical advisors who will have evaluated the impact and costs of the proposals.

2. The Technical Group will have a key role in promoting government standards through the Executive's Information Age Government Framework. The standards cover technical, security and data protection and privacy issues. As mentioned above, this group would be instrumental in identifying the implications of proposed changes, which the overarching group will have to take into account in their decision taking. Technical as well as administrative support for the group will be needed.

3. The Tasks Groups could easily proliferate and we must avoid that. In prioritising the list of tasks the ScotXed Board proposes that:

• The STACS Review should begin as soon as possible.
• A task group to look into teacher data should be set up to meet for the first time in June when a new C1 statistician appointee with IAC ECSU takes up post. We should involve HMIE and the GTC. Data should encompass teachers, classroom and support assistants and administrative staff. It should cover CPD. The intention is to specify ScotXed requirements in this area with a view to a first data feed on individual staff in Autumn 2003.
• Work on planning incorporation of 5-14 attainment data at pupil level, in respect probably of session 2002-03, should begin now in SEED.
• Similarly work on attendance / absence should begin now in SEED. Data will be collected in August 2004 relating to the 2003-04 session.
• Issues concerning the exchange of leaver destinations data should be raised with SEIAG in a paper on Careers Scotland.
• The desirability of conducting a data collection on curriculum in 2003-04, as currently suggested in the overview plan, should be considered further by SEED and other stakeholders, involving SEIAG.
• Inter school transfers and UPN will be addressed through the wider C21 government initiative and its application to ScotXed .
• The process of streamlining data exchanges involving SQA should begin as quickly as possible, concentrating in the first instance on encouraging more schools to record attainment information electronically, and identifying areas of common interest with HE/FE providers.
• The decision about whether or not to pursue curriculum and timetable data should rest with SEIAG
• We should set up a task group on Benchmarking.

The ScotXed Board proposes that task groups in general be led and administered by relevant SEED policy divisions who will operate within the ScotXed consultative framework with support from statisticians and ScotXed managers. The proposals of the Task Groups would be moderated by SEIAG on behalf of the ScotXed partnership, taking account of the advice and comments of the Technical Group.

Consideration of the above tasks has raised a number of issues:

• Looked After Children (LAC) - there is potential for ScotXed to streamline the data collection required to monitor progress against National Priority, Social Justice and Audit Scotland indicators. However, there are a number of hurdles to overcome. ECSU will prepare a paper and consult, with a view to recommending that there will be no change until 2003/4 at the earliest.
• Social care and education core data sets - the Social Care Data Standards Project will pull together a version of its equivalent of the DIA in September 2002. It is likely that some of the potentially common variables and codes, including ethnicity, LAC, SEN, will be discrepant. 21st Century Government has set up a Data Sharing Task Group. We must work with this group and within the project to minimise the differences.
• For its policy purposes and to provide statistics and benchmarks, SEED takes one 'snapshot' of pupil data in the Autumn. There is an argument for taking snapshots at other times in the year e.g. for the LAC monitoring (pattern of care), with the 5-14 attainment data, and for 1st / 2nd / 3rd term Leavers. If we are to venture down this route, the implications have to be clearly spelled out and the collections have to be organised as efficiently as possible.

IAC:ISSU

28 May 2002