Wales Audit Office - NFI Instructions: Data specifications

The data specifications are reviewed prior to each NFI exercise and a summary of changes for the 2010/11 exercise can be seen in the table below. Changes to the fields required in the data specifications have been kept to a minimum to ensure consistency between exercises; however some changes have been necessary to improve the matching process and the quality of matches passed back for review. A number of changes simply relate to additional guidance.

In addition to the specific data specifications below, there is a also a generic data format guide which provides help on the format of data to be submitted (for example the format of date fields, numeric fields, character fields and blank fields.

Data specification	Summary of changes from 2008/09 specification
Payroll	Additional guidance provided in data specification to highlight requirement to submit data for different organisations in separate files.
Pensions	Additional guidance around 'Pensioner's widow indicator' New field: 'Ill health retirement flag'
Trade creditors payment history (creditors guidelines)	Additional guidance provided in data specification to clarify the period that creditors data should cover.
Trade creditors standing data (creditors guidelines)	Removed field: 'Additional payee'
Housing	Additional guidance to highlight data should only relate to residential properties. We now require data for all named tenants and therefore the 'Tenant status flag' field has been revised. New field: 'National Insurance Number'
Council tax	Council tax data is not expected to be submitted until October 2011
Electoral register	Electoral register data is not expected to be submitted until October 2011
Insurance claimants	Additional guidance provided in data specification to highlight that data should only relate to personal injury claims. Removed fields: 'Claimants occupation', and all 'Witness' fields Revised field: 'Estimated cost' Revised field: 'Actual cost'
Private supported care home residents	None
Transport passes and permits	Revised field: ‘National Insurance Number’ to emphasise importance of providing this field with the data. Removed field: 'Vehicle Registration Number'
Licences	Additional guidance to confirm taxi licence data for private hire and hackney carriages is required. New fields: 'Licence start date' and 'Licence expiry date'

Wales Audit Office
24 Cathedral Road
Cardiff
CF11 9LJ

Tel: 029 2032 0500
Fax: 029 2032 0600
Email: info@wao.gov.uk