The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) have released the finalised specification for the new exit payments data requirement. The specification has been amended as a result of the feedback from and on behalf of sixty local authorities, and which was also discussed in detail with the Central and Local Government Information Partnership finance group.
Clearance has been received from the LGA (Gateway Group) that the data collection is now part of the Single Data List of required regular data returns.
The finalised specification is available to download as an Excel workbook from https://delta.communities.gov.uk/document-repository/public/download?uri=/document-repository/Data_Commission_Special_Severance_Payments.xlsx
The data collection will also be formally launched imminently on the online data collection system, DELTA (https://delta.communities.gov.uk). The easiest way to submit the data will be to upload this Excel workbook into DELTA.
Deadlines for submission
The deadlines for submission are as follows:
- data for 2019-20 and 2020-21 should be uploaded by Monday 14 June.
- data for the years of 2014-15 to 2018-19 should be uploaded by Wednesday 30 June.
Submitting data
In the meantime, it is important that the person or people who will be submitting the data on behalf of your local authority are registered on the online data collection system, DELTA, so that they will be able to upload the data for your authority as follows:
- Those who already have a DELTA account need to go to My Account and then My Profile and select the data collection ‘Exit packages payments data’ (the screenshots in Annex A below shows how)
- Those who do not already have a DELTA account will need first to register for one. Guidance on getting set up in DELTA can be downloaded from: https://delta.communities.gov.uk/document-repository/public/download?uri=/document-repository/delta-guide-bulk-upload-ssp-exit-payments-may-2021.pdf
If you or your colleagues need further help with DELTA registration, please email deltaadmin@communities.gov.uk
If no one has registered from your authority for this data return by Monday 7 June, then the LGA will register you to receive the reminders and to be able to upload the data.
If you have any other queries about the data collection, please email LGPensions@communities.gov.uk