Scottish Exchange of Data - school estates core facts survey: guidance notes

Question guidance

Question 1: local authority

Question 1, parts 1.1-1.4: some information that you sent last year about your LA has been pre-populated into the form.

Please note that:

• you should describe the formula you use to calculate capacity for each type of educational provision (primary and secondary) defining all terms used fully. Please state the parts of the school you have included in the capacity calculation, e.g. dining areas, corridors, swimming pool etc.
• the information you provided in these cells last year has been pre-populated into these cells. Please check this and, if the formula/approach remains the same, resubmit the pre-populated information

1.1

The Local Authority 3 digit code is already populated for each LA.

1.2

Please enter the formula used to calculate capacity for primary schools. The information that you sent last year has been pre-populated into the form. Please review and, where necessary, update the formula for this year. 

1.3

Please enter the formula used to calculate capacity for secondary schools. The information that you sent last year has been pre-populated into the form. Please review and, where necessary, update the formula for this year. 

1.4

Please enter any additional comments or explanations on the authority level component.

1.5

Please provide an estimate of the time taken, in hours, at a local authority level, to provide the school estates information.

Please include the time you take to transfer this information from your systems or databases into the form in ProcXed (including any time taken to request this information from other colleagues within your Local Authority if you do not have access to all of the relevant information) and any time taken to validate errors that are flagged up in ProcXed or queries directly from ourselves about the data supplied.

Do not include work carried out throughout the year to collect and update information on suitability, condition, value of works etc. This is because you will need up to date information on the school estate for investment bids, proposed closures etc. You will also need to keep a record of expenditure on new schools for financial accounting, so it is unlikely that any of this collection work would be for the purposes of this statistics collection only.

The UK Statistics Authority requires us to collect this information.

Question 2: school

The information that you sent last year about schools has been pre-populated into the form.

Please note that:

• all schools that have been open at any time in the last financial year should be included

• you should add any local authority schools that are not included in the prepopulated data. To add a new school to the online form, please click “add before” or “add after” and enter the details for the school. If you think the school should have been included in the pre-populated data please note this in the comments (Question 7)
• you should update any schools which are now closed or mothballed by changing the open status (2.4) to “closed”/”mothballed” as relevant
• please only mark a school as closed if the school as an establishment has closed. If a school’s building has closed but it is continuing to operate from another site (whether temporarily or permanently) it should be recorded as open
• if a special school does not have any pupils on the roll or a physical building in which pupils are taught, please leave questions 3 to 6 blank and add a note in the comments box to this effect

Local authority nurseries should not be included unless they are part of a local authority primary school. Joint nursery and primary schools should be treated as a primary school. Data for standalone nurseries should not be included anywhere in this collection.

2.1

Please enter the school name.

2.2

Please enter the school SEED number.

2.3

Please enter the school type: primary (2), secondary (3) or special (4).

2.4

Please enter whether the school is open (1), closed (2) or mothballed (3).

For any closed or mothballed centres you should supply relevant information regarding the centre’s estate when it was closed/mothballed.

Question 3: the extent of the school estate

This question relates to Core Fact One.

Please note that:

• information is required for each school
• where possible you should split information for multiple schools on the same site

3.1

Please indicate if the school shares a site with another school with a differing SEED code (not including nursery schools) and where they share facilities such as playgrounds, sports pitches, gym and/or assembly halls. This does not refer to facilities which are not used in the normal delivery of education, such as access roads and car parks.

Schools with special and Gaelic units where the same Head Teacher heads the unit and school should not be recorded as sharing a campus.

A through school with the same SEED code for primary and secondary should not be recorded as sharing a campus, unless it shares a campus with another separate school.

Please note: if you indicate a school is part of shared campus you will be required to identify the other centre(s) at the bottom of the form. If not, the additional centres questions are not available.

3.2

Please indicate if there is space within the school exclusively dedicated to, and managed by, those who provide community services, including dental, medical, police, or social work. This does not refer to community access to and use of school amenities, such as sports or cultural facilities. Space dedicated to community services provided by the local authority should be excluded from this.

Question 4: investment in the school estate

This question relates to Core Fact Two.

Please note that:

• this section looks to capture work completed in the last financial year
• 4.2 onwards are only completed if rebuilding or refurbishment work has been completed in the last financial year
• projects on nursery accommodation at a site shared with a school – for example work related to the 1140 hours expansion – should be included if the nursery and the school share the same head teacher and if the work meets the cost thresholds specified at 4.5
• phased investment projects should only be included when all phases have been completed
• the information you supplied last year on investment in the estate has not been pre-populated into the form. This is because it is expected that a school will not appear in this category two years in a row. If you returned data on uncompleted building work in error last year, please let us know

4.1

Please indicate if the school has been rebuilt or refurbished and completed in the 2023/24 financial year or not.

Phased investment projects should only be included when all phases have been completed.

If you entered ‘Yes’ in 4.1, you should complete Parts 4.2 - 4.5.

4.2

Please enter the date (yyyy-mm-dd) when the work was completed.

In the case of new buildings/sites, this should be the date the new school was occupied by pupils. In the case of refurbishment and/or extension projects, that should be the date the works were signed off.

If you do not have an exact date please enter the 1st of the relevant month.

The date must be within the last financial year.

4.3

Please indicate if the work was a new school building project or a refurbishment or extension project.

4.4

Please indicate here the type of funding used for this work.

Only 1 funding source can be returned for each school. If work was funded from multiple sources, please enter the source of funding that made the largest contribution to the project.

4.5

For all projects, please indicate the total cumulative value of works carried out for that school (not just the value in the financial year).

We expect this to capture work with a cumulative value of more than £500,000 for primary schools, or more than £1 million for secondary and special schools.

Question 5: the condition and suitability of the school estate

This question relates to Core Fact Three (Condition) and Core Fact Five (Suitability)

Please note that

• information is required for each school except where stated
• information relates to external and internal condition
• all condition and suitability ratings returned should now be based upon the guidance published in November 2017.1,2
• information on planned investment should be completed for all schools regardless of their condition and suitability ratings

Two new questions have been added to this section for 2022. They ask for the versions of the guidance on condition and suitability ratings have been used to calculate the ratings provided. These questions are optional this year.

The questions added in 2020 on the dates of the latest condition and suitability surveys at each school are now required. The questions added in 2021 on the guidance used to determine the latest condition and suitability ratings are also now required.

5.1

Please enter an overall condition rating for each school. Each school should be assigned to one of the categories below (A‑D) by suitably qualified and experienced personnel (guidance can be found on gov.scot, including on recording suitability and condition of schools was published in November 2017. All condition and suitability ratings returned in the School Estates collection should be based on this guidance).

The ratings should reflect any significant improvements or obvious deterioration in light of work done/or not done in the past 12 months.

A: Good – Performing well and operating efficiently

B: Satisfactory – Performing adequately but showing minor deterioration

C: Poor – Showing major defects and/or not operating adequately

D: Bad – Economic life expired and/or risk of failure.

5.2

Please enter the date of the most recent condition survey for each school. The date should be within the last five years but not after the survey date of 1 April. If an exact date is not available please enter the 1st of the relevant month.

This question is now required.

5.3

Please provide information on the version of guidance used to calculate the condition rating entered at 5.1.

New guidance on condition reporting was published in 2017.

This question is now required.

5.4

Please enter an overall suitability rating for each school. Each school should be assigned to one of the categories below (A‑D) by suitably qualified and experienced personnel. The ratings should be derived from our guidance document.

A: Good – Performing well and operating efficiently

B: Satisfactory – Performing adequately but with minor problems

C: Poor – Showing major problems and/or not operating optimally

D: Bad – Does not support the delivery of services to children and communities

5.5