Staff Record 2019/20 (C19025): Notification of Changes
This document summarises the changes to the Staff record that will be implemented for 2019/20. Where valid entries are known they have been included. The first version of the C19025 coding manual contains further detail.
Changes to the coverage of the record
The coverage of the staff record has been updated to reflect that the return of non-academic staff has been made optional for English providers on the register in the Approved (fee cap) category with the OfS. The return of this data would have been an opt-in service in your HESA subscription agreement.
The validation for the 2019/20 staff return will be updated to reflect the optionality of the return of non-academic staff by English providers.
Changes to the xml file
The schema has been updated to be in alphabetical order.
The Person.REFUOA2021, Contract.RESAST and Contract.RESCON fields were implemented in the incorrect order in the XML for C18025, this has now been corrected. There are also two new fields this year Contract.ECRSTAT and Contract.REFFTE.
The sequence of the xml file can be found in the C19025.xsd.
New fields
Contract.ECRSTAT
The Early Career Researchers field has been re-instated (previously included in C13025). This field records the early career researcher status of staff.
The coverage of the field will be:
Compulsory for all staff in HEPs intending to participate in REF2021, who have an active contract on the REF census date of 2020-07-31 which meets the definition of Category A eligibility: (Contract.TERMS = 1 or 2) and ((Contract.ACEMPFUN = 2 and Contract.RESAST is not 1) or (Contract.ACEMPFUN = 3)). This field should be completed for staff when Contract.SIGRES is coded 1 and 2.
Valid entries will be:
- Early career researcher
- Not an early career researcher
Contract.REFFTE
This field will identify the contracted FTE on the REF census date (31 July 2020) for the REF eligible population.
The coverage of the field will be:
Compulsory for all staff in HEPs intending to submit to REF2021, who have an active contract on 2020-07-31 which meets the definition of Category A eligibility: (Contract.TERMS = 1 or 2) and ((Contract.ACEMPFUN = 2 and Contract.RESAST is not 1) or (Contract.ACEMPFUN = 3)).
The reason this is required is:
To distinguish between eligible and ineligible staff for the REF and to determine the proportion of the eligible staff included as Category A submitted staff in the submission. The HESA Staff Record is the only existing data source from which REF-eligible populations can be determined. This data item represents the minimum adaptation required to utilise the Staff record data for the REF for these requirements.
Updates to existing fields
Person.REFUOA2021
The coverage to Person.REFUOA2021 has been updated from optional to be:
Compulsory for all staff in HEPs intending to participate in REF2021, who have at least one active contract of employment on the REF census date of 2020-07-31 which meets the definition of Category A eligibility: (Contract.TERMS = 1 or 2) and ((Contract.ACEMPFUN = 2 and Contract.RESAST is not 1) or (Contract.ACEMPFUN = 3)). This field should be completed for staff when Contract.SIGRES is coded 1 and 2.
Person.ACTCHQUAL
The Person.ACTCHQUAL field has been updated with the assistance of Advance HE and SEDA.
The following valid entries have been added:
11 Recognised by Advance HE as an Associate Fellow against Descriptor 1 of the UKPSF
12 Recognised by Advance HE as a Fellow against Descriptor 2 of the UKPSF
13 Recognised by Advance HE as a Senior Fellow against Descriptor 3 of the UKPSF
14 Recognised by Advance HE as a Principal Fellow against Descriptor 4 of the UKPSF
15 Recognised by SEDA against Descriptor 1 of the UKPSF
16 Recognised by SEDA against Descriptor 2 of the UKPSF
The 02, 03, 04 and 05 codes have been retained this year for continuing staff but do map directly to the new codes of 11, 12, 13, and 14 which have been updated to the new label to reflect the organisational change to Advance HE. We will look to discontinue codes 02 – 05 in the 20/21 collection C20025 and validation will be introduced to manage this transition.
Courses recognised by SEDA against its Named Awards that are accredited against the UKPSF (Supporting Learning; Learning Teaching and Assessing) can be coded as 01 ‘Successfully completed an institutional provision in teaching in the higher education sector accredited against the UK Professional Standards Framework' as in previous years for continuity or can be mapped to the new codes 15 and 16; validation will be updated accordingly. It is expected that code 01 will be removed in a future collection but that providers should look to map this to codes 15 or 16 for continuing staff ahead of this. A decision on this will be communicated at a later date.
For new members of staff in the 19/20 collection codes 01-05 should not be returned.
The guidance for this field has been updated to reflect the changes in valid entries and will be in the first manual release, which can be found here.
Contract.RESAST
The notes in the Contract.RESAST field have been updated to include a statement from Research England.
“We intend to use the RESAST field as part of our identification of the REF Category A eligible pool among the HESA staff population. Therefore, staff who are carrying out another individual’s research programme, and therefore do not meet the definition of an independent researcher in accordance with the HEI’s code of practice, should be identified as a research assistant (RESAST=1) in the HESA return”.
Contract.SIGRES
The coverage to Contract.SIGRES has been updated from optional to be:
Compulsory for all staff in HEPs intending to participate in REF2021, who have an active contract on the REF census date of 2020-07-31 which meets the definition of Category A eligibility: (Contract.TERMS = 1 or 2) and ((Contract.ACEMPFUN = 2 and Contract.RESAST is not 1) or (Contract.ACEMPFUN = 3)).
Person.CURACCDIS
The Person.CURACCDIS field coding frame has changed from JACS to HECoS. The guidance has also been updated to reflect the change of coding frame along with a change to the maximum occurrences from 3 to 5.