Guidance
Children in need census 2025 to 2026: specification
Specification and validation rules for local authorities and software suppliers preparing for the 2025 to 2026 children in need census.
- From:
- Department for Education
- Published
- 1 November 2024
- Last updated
- 26 November 2025 — See all updates
Applies to England
Documents
Children in need census 2025 to 2026: business and technical specification
PDF, 451 KB, 33 pages
Children in need census 2025 to 2026: validation rules
ODSMS Excel Spreadsheet, 2241.3 KB
This file is in an OpenDocument format
Details
This is technical information about submitting data for the children in need census for the period 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026.
It is for:
- suppliers of software for local authority management information systems (MIS)
- users of local authority MIS software
It explains:
- changes to the previous year’s census collection
- what data local authorities should supply at child level
- how to structure the data in XML
- how to check the data against the validation rules
Details
This is technical information about submitting data for the children in need census for the period 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026.
It is for:
- suppliers of software for local authority management information systems (MIS)
- users of local authority MIS software
It explains:
- changes to the previous year’s census collection
- what data local authorities should supply at child level
- how to structure the data in XML
- how to check the data against the validation rules
Updates to this page
Published 1 November 2024
Last updated 26 November 2025
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Updated the 'Children in need census 2025 to 2026: validation rules'.
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First published.
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Update history
2025-11-26 14:14
Updated the ‘Children in need census 2025 to 2026: validation rules’.
2024-11-01 12:40
First published.