Written question WQ87859

The Welsh Government’s Information Management Strategy provides guidance to schools and local authorities to support and simplify the statutory considerations in relation to their ICT systems and how educational data should be used safely and securely in line with legislative requirements and in a consistent way.

The Welsh Government also manages and hosts the Software Development Forum (SDF). This is a Forum that brings together various stakeholders such as educational software suppliers and local authorities and provides a consultative forum to discuss the operational impact of proposed future changes to statutory data collections and data transfers. It allows discussion on future arrangements for commissioning data collection, including the timetable for requesting changes to existing data items or requests for new data items. All statutory data collections are developed based on the principle that only data required by the schools themselves to manage itself effectively and efficiently are collected. The statutory data collections are reviewed annually by the Welsh Government as part of the routine cycle to ensure there are existing business justifications for what is collected and that the data items collected are valid.

In addition, the Managing Workload and Reducing Bureaucracy Group, which comprises key stakeholders from education in Wales, including the middle tier, trade unions and employers, are working with Welsh Government to oversee further work to reduce workload and bureaucracy. This includes the consideration of data and other reporting requirements.