any other payments that the social worker received in the reporting year that were not part of their base salary. The data item format is ‘nnnnnn.nn’. 19 4. Data return formats Please note: example data shown in this section is for illustration purposes only. 4.1 Available formats The local authority children’s social work workforce census is submitted to the DfE via the following formats: • direct entry into COLLECT • entry into an XML template (provided by the DfE) • an XML upload onto COLLECT For local authorities without a MIS that can output a CSWW census compliant XML file, the DfE provides a data entry spreadsheet which enables the input of file header and individual pupil record information. On completion the file is converted to XML format (using the spreadsheet) and uploaded to COLLECT. The data entry spreadsheet is provided on request. 4.2 Data items with no values There may be cases where there are no values to be provided for particular data items. Where values are described in this specification which are not mandatory, it is not expected that data must be returned. For example: • agency worker length of contract • absent on 30 September 2024 • reason for absence • recruitment and retention payments • other additional payments In the above scenarios the XML tag is not required to be present in the census return if no data is present / recorded. This applies to all data items that are not mandatory in nature. For all other scenarios, a missing item or value will result in an error being generated. 4.3 XML format submission An XML submission is a single message consisting of: • a header 20 • the aggregate local authority vacancy data • a repeating group containing the data for each worker Overall message structure <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <Mess