orting, and allows those involved in a collection to view consistent and up-to-date details of a data return. DfE collects data from a wider community than just local authorities and the COLLECT software has been designed in a way that allows data to be collected from any source without having to redesign major components of the software each time a collection is undertaken. The children in need COLLECT blade can be accessed through DfE Sign-in (DSI). DfE Sign-in is accessed via the DfE Sign-in website. For any queries, please use DfE Sign-in help. Details of how to access DfE Sign-In and the COLLECT portal will be sent in a communication to local authority contacts, nearer the time that the census collection goes live. 1.9 Validation checks Validation checks will be applied to your data once it has been loaded into COLLECT. These checks help to identify missing data, invalid data, and other anomalies. The validation checks can be found in the accompanying technical specification for this collection. Validation checks are classified as either errors or queries. A query can be distinguished from an error by the validation rule number, which has a ‘Q’ suffix (for example 8530Q), and that the associated message begins, ‘"Please check …”’. DfE classifies validation rules as errors where a correction is required in all cases. However, for queries, although DfE would expect a correction in most cases, there may be circumstances under which the data is correct and may remain. The COLLECT system enables users to annotate queries with an explanation and we request this is undertaken to assist with data cleaning. Some of the validation rules that are built into COLLECT have an automatic ‘OK’ function. This means once you have checked all the records where these rules have trigger