Finalising your data

When all the pupil measurement data has been collected and entered or uploaded to the NCMP IT system and data quality and progress indicators are as expected, then the data is ready to be finalised so that NHS Digital can commence final validation. The finalised data must have no unsuppressed warnings.

You can see a diagram of the submission process in Appendix A.  

To be able to access the submissions tab in the NCMP system, you must have been assigned the role of NCMP Lead. For more information refer to the Setting up user accounts guidance.

To open the submission pages click on the submission tab at the top of the page.

As well as finalising the collected pupil measurement data, local authorities are required to provide for analysis purposes, supplementary information of pupils who have not been measured.

If all non-measured pupils in your local authority (LA) are included within your pupil data and a reason for non-measurement specified, these aggregated counts will show in the left section of the supplementary information page, under the heading of non-measurement reasons entered at pupil level as below.

For more details about recording non-measurement, refer to the record NCMP participation opt-out in the pupil data management guidance document. 

If these figures are accurate (that is - you have included all non-measured pupils and entered their non-measurements reasons), no further action is required.

However, if these figures are not accurate for example some non-measured pupils are missing from your data or if you have not recorded non-measured pupils, the figures for each reason of non-measurement should be entered manually in the middle section of the supplementary Information page, under the heading of Local authority amended non measurement reasons as shown below.

Once you have entered these figures, click save. 

The figures in the right hand section under the heading Non measurement reasons totals to be used are the final figures which will be in any analyses.

When all your LA’s pupil data has been entered, your local authority's submission must be finalised. By finalising the submission you are confirming that you are satisfied with the data quality of your submission. It is not possible to finalise your submission if there are unsuppressed warnings in your data. All unsuppressed warnings (for example. extreme measurements or blank postcodes) must be checked and either amended if the data is incorrect, or supressed if the data is correct/as expected.

It is not possible to finalise your data if there are any breaching indicators (highlighted red) without providing a breach reason (selected from dropdown menu). Please check all indicators which are highlighted as breaching. If the breach is due to errors that can be corrected, please amend your data as necessary. If the breach is unavoidable, please establish the reason for the breach and select this when finalising you data (there is a free text option if required). Data quality indicators by LA, along with breach reasons, will be published in the national report to aid user interpretation.

More information on data quality indicators is available from 5. Progress and data quality monitoring.

More information about how we validate NCMP data is available from the NCMP validation and rules guidance.

By the submission deadline date, all local authorities should have finalised their data. This is done by changing the Submission Status from the default status of Available For Collection to the status of Finalised. You can finalise your data prior to the deadline. This will lock your data so that no further changes can be made. The data can be unlocked if you want to make any changes.

This means that on the deadline date NHS Englandl will lock the system for all local authorities. Any records containing unsuppressed warnings at this stage are likely to not be included in the final analysis as NHS England will be unable to verify their accuracy.

1.From the top menu, click Submission.

2. Once on the Submission page, click the Submission Status tab.

3. The default submission status of Available For Collection is shown. Click change to change the status to finalised. By finalising the data the NCMP Lead is confirming that the collection is complete and that data quality and progress indicators have been checked. Any breaching data quality indicators will be displayed and you must select a breach reason before you are able to finalise your data.

4. The finalised data will be locked and no changes can be made without unlocking the data.

5. If there are unsuppressed warnings against any data, you will be unable to proceed until all warnings have either been supressed (if the data are correct or as expected) or the underlying data corrected.

6. If there are no unsuppressed warnings, the submission status will change to Finalised. This status will be visible to NHS England administrators who will know that your local authority has finalised your submission. You won’t receive an automated email.

7. When the submission status is set to Finalised, most of the system is locked and will appear greyed-out

The pupil data cannot be submitted to NHS Englandl if any pupil records have unsuppressed warnings shown against them, indicated by a warning symbol.

These warnings must be suppressed if the data are correct (or as expected) or their underlying data corrected.

To see which records have unsuppressed warning:

1. Click monitoring on the top menu.

2. Click the data quality tab.  

3. Scroll down the data quality dashboard to the unsuppressed warnings.

4. Each of these data quality indicators must show zero (0) prior to the system allowing your local authority's pupil data to be finalised.

5. To access the underlying data click the relevant warning type link or to see all unsuppressed warnings, click the all unsuppressed warnings link.

After the submission deadline date, NHS England will extract all non-personally identifiable data for further validation.

If any errors are highlighted by NHS England validation process, the relevant LA’s submission will be unlocked and their submission status returned to Available for Collection. NHS England will notify the local authority to make the required corrections and resubmit their data. 

Once NHS England has carried out initial validation an enhanced dataset will be made available to local authorities via the system. This dataset will contain all the data originally provided by the local authority along with mapped geographic and deprivation-based fields and derived fields such as child age. You will be able to extract your LA’s enhanced dataset until the data is purged by NHS England. For a full breakdown of the enhanced dataset, refer to Appendix B - Enhanced dataset. 

1. From the Top menu, click submission.

2. On the Submission page, click the submission status tab.

3. If your local authority's submission has been validated by NCMP and no corrective action is required, a link will appear enabling you to Extract Enhanced Dataset.

When you have extracted your local authority's enhanced dataset, you should confirm the extraction by changing the Submission status of your local authority from finalised to ready For purging. This will allow your local authority's data to be deleted from the NCMP system in accordance to information governance regulations. To change the submission status to Ready For Purging click change. 

The enhanced dataset will remain available until all data for the collection is purged by NHS England.