Series details: CRDA/47

The Register of Educational Establishments (REE) database was created by the former Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) to hold basic information about schools and similar educational bodies, primarily in England. It was succeeded by EduBase in 2002. Both databases had been maintained for the DfEE and its successor, the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), by external contractors (see Statement of responsibility). The original REE is thought to have been established in 1996, replacing an earlier system called the Index of Educational Establishments. This played a similar role to the REE database, and was maintained in-house by the DfEE. Nothing further is known about the predecessor system, and no data from it is thought to have survived.

Both the REE database and EduBase were made available to Department staff via their intranet, PRISM. The databases were used for a variety of administrative and statistical purposes, including:

• Generating mailings to schools.
• As a sampling frame, i.e. to determine which schools should be included in sample surveys and consultations carried out by the Department.
• Ensuring that the Department has the correct contextual data for the production of performance tables.
• Checking that schools have returned their annual Schools' Census returns.
• Identifying data on an individual school or groups of schools.

Earlier information supplied by the Department suggested that some data in the REE had been added at the request of specific sections/teams, which acted as the "owner" of that data. Data from the database had also been supplied to a number of external bodies, including the Teacher Training Agency, the General Teaching Council, the Office for Standards in Education, the General Teaching Council for England, and the contractor administering the Teachers' Pension Scheme (which is also responsible for updating certain fields in the database). A data sharing agreement has been established with the National College for School Leadership. In 2002 the DfES planned to provide the public with access via the Internet to a limited range of data in the database. The contractor maintaining the database has had the right to use the data for certain commercial purposes, and responds to requests for data from schools, local education authorities (LEAs), businesses and the general public.1

With the 2006 transfer of EduBase, the "data owner" arrangement was confirmed; and the proposal to provide a version of the database online had by this time become a reality with the creation of the EduBase website at www.edubase.gov.uk.

When the first REE dataset was transferred to NDAD in December 2000, the REE database was the responsibility of Team 8 of Schools, Teachers and Resources Division within the Analytical Services Directorate of the Department for Education and Employment. This team, division and directorate continued to act as the overall data owner for the database after the DfEE was replaced by the Department for Education and Skills in June 2001. For further information on Analytical Services Directorate, the DfEE and the DfES, see the Administrative History of the Education Departments.2

Since its inception, the database has been maintained for the DfEE and DfES by an external contractor. The contractor runs a help desk which maintains and updates the database, and deals with external enquiries. From 1996 until 2002 the contractor was the Schools Register, a division of Dudley Jenkins List Broking Ltd. The Schools Register conducts its own surveys of schools, and supplies data on schools for direct marketing purposes. In 2002 the contract was awarded to PoulterNet, a subsidiary of Poulter Partners, an advertising, design, direct marketing, brand development and publicity company.3 PoulterNet developed the successor system EduBase, a copy of which was transferred to NDAD in 2006.

The data in this series can be divided into four main categories:

• Data on educational bodies.
• Data on Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs) and Local Enterprise Companies (LECs).
• Data on the database itself and modifications to the database.
• Data relating to pro forma reports.

Where the REE held records of early years, primary, secondary, independent and further education establishments, the EduBase system also held details on higher education establishments.

The copy of EduBase transferred to NDAD held no data on its own modifications, or data relating to reports.

Further detail on the contents of each dataset can be found with the individual dataset catalogues. See Links to dataset catalogues.

The dataset and related dataset documentation in this series have been selected for preservation by The National Archives under the following themes of their Acquisition and Policy Statement: 2.1.5 (formulation and delivery of social policies) and 2.2.1 (economic, social and demographic condition of the UK).

Further transfers of datasets in this series are expected.

Datasets and related dataset documentation in this series are public records under the Public Records Acts 1958 and 1967. The National Archives has assigned the datasets and documents to series NV 2.

Some of the tables and fields in the datasets in this series are subject to access restrictions. See the dataset catalogues for further details (Links to dataset catalogues). Dataset documentation is open to users of NDAD without restriction.

Datasets and related dataset documentation in this series are Crown Copyright. Copies may be made for private study and research purposes only.

Datasets in this series are subject to registration under the Data Protection Act. Subject access to the data is permitted.

The language of the materials is English.

NDAD holds a series of datasets derived from the Schools' Census (CRDA/13), an annual survey of schools in England. The Schools' Census is the source of some of the data in the REE and EduBase databases. In addition, it should be possible to match some of the records in the REE and EduBase databases to records in the Schools' Census datasets. Although the latter do not include schools' names, they do give identifiers (LEA numbers, and ESTAB or SCH numbers), which are equivalent to the LEA numbers and DFE numbers in the ree table (see Scope and content). The REE database was begun in 1996, and therefore considerably postdates those Schools' Census datasets which are available via NDAD. However, the DfES has advised that many schools' LEA and establishment numbers remain largely unchanged over long periods of time. This would seem to be confirmed by the examples of original Schools' Census forms which NDAD has received. NDAD has forms for 14 schools covering the period 1974-1981, which make it possible to link the names of these schools to the LEA numbers and establishment numbers used for them at the time. Eleven of the schools appear in the ree table with the same LEA numbers and DFE numbers. Of the remaining three, one appears in ree, but with a different LEA number (the former LEA number, matching that in the Schools' Census forms, is recorded in the Old_LEA_Number field). The other two schools do not appear in the REE database at all, presumably because they closed before 1996. For further information on the Schools' Census, see the Series Catalogue.

NDAD holds a single dataset from a defunct DfEE database relating to schools which gained or attempted to gain grant-maintained status, and schools which attended conferences on grant-maintained issues. The main 'school' table in the dataset includes schools' LEA numbers, and has a 'School Number' field which is the equivalent of the DFE_Number field in the ree table. It should thus be possible to match some of the records on schools in the Grant Maintained Schools Database, to records in the REE. For further information on the Grant Maintained Schools Database, see the Series Catalogue.

In 2002, NDAD's understanding was simply that the REE database was held on a server and made accessible to staff via PRISM, the Department's intranet.4 No further information was available on the hardware used with the REE database, and it was not known what hardware was used by the contractor.

Microsoft Windows 95 for the REE database.

For the REE database, Microsoft Access 97 was used by the contractor and by the Department through to the end of the Schools Register's contract with the DfES in 2002. However, the database was not made available via the DfES's intranet in Access format (see How data was originally captured and validated). In 2002, the DfES indicated that the database maintained by PoulterNet would be in a different format from Access.5

EduBase was run as a Microsoft SQL Server 2000 relational database with multiple tables, stored procedures, functions, jobs, and user defined data types. The extracts were converted to CSV format and saved to the server by programs written in C#.NET, using SQL stored procedures to retrieve the data (formatted as XML) from the database.

In 2006, NDAD received a copy of the high level functional specification document used by PoulterNet to create the EduBase system. In describing the system in 2002, they spoke of three user interfaces: (1) a public internet site providing the ability for commercial organisations, not-for-profit organisations, members of the general public, and other interested parties to query the data and retrieve limited numbers of records. This interface provided read-only access to the database. (2) A read-only interface available to users of the PRISM DfES Intranet via the DfES internal network. (3) A private extranet allowing access for the Poulter Partners help desk operators and authenticated members of the DfES. The extranet allowed data changes to be proposed, verified and applied to the database and provided management reports in relation to database activity and service levels. See the Dataset Documentation Catalogue, reference CRDA/47/DD/1/2/1. These three interfaces are likely to have been designed into the new EduBase system.

The copy of the REE database transferred to NDAD in December 2000 consisted of 53 tables linked in one-to-many relationships.

The copy of the EduBase database transferred to NDAD in 2006 was accessioned as a single table, although the original database is likely to have been structured as several tables.

For further information on the structure of each database, see Links to dataset catalogues.

The copy of the REE database transferred to NDAD in December 2000 exhibits both closed and dynamic features. The main ree table could be said to be closed, in the sense that any changes to the data in the table were recorded in the separate history table. Other elements of the database were dynamic, in that there was no formal structure to preserve data altered or erased. However, it was clear from the table names that earlier versions of some tables were preserved alongside their replacements (see Logical structure and schema).

The EduBase database transferred in 2006 was a dynamic system, in the sense that most of the data was frequently updated. The Data Dictionary, a copy of which is held by NDAD, provides specific timings of updates.

Details of the content and transformation validation checks performed by NDAD staff on the REE datasets are contained in the catalogues of individual datasets: see Links to dataset catalogues.

Dataset catalogues provide more detailed information about individual datasets, and are currently available for the following dataset(s):

1. Notes of telephone conversations between NDAD and the DfEE/DfES on 2 March 1998, 15 December 2000, 19 July 2001, 4 December 2001 and 11 July 2002; DfES web site, "Register of Educational Establishments" page (http://www.dfee.gov.uk/ree.shtml) consulted on 11 June 2002.

2. Notes of telephone conversations between NDAD and DfEE/DfES on 19 July 2001 and 4 December 2001.

3. Notes of telephone conversations between NDAD and DfEE/DfES on 2 March 1998 and 10 June 2002; web site of Poulter Partners (http://www.poulterpartners.com/) consulted 12 June 2002; brochure "Direct Marketing to Schools" downloaded from the web site of Dudley Jenkins List Broking Ltd (http://www.dudleyjenkins.co.uk/dudjen_pdf/dm_schools.pdf) on 11 June 2002.

4. Note of telephone conversation between NDAD and the DfEE/DfES on 10 June 2002 and 11 July 2002.

5. Note of telephone conversation between NDAD and the DfES on 11 July 2002.