The Information Standards Board

The Information Standards Board (ISB) for education, skills and children’s services is the overarching authority and governing body for the management and assurance of data and information standards in these sectors. It is jointly sponsored by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Education.

Information standards are necessary to allow people and systems to exchange and re-use information. ISB aims to develop a definitive set of standards through stakeholder consensus and to support their implementation by ensuring developments are shared effectively and lessons are learnt. An xsd file for the ISB XML Schema has been produced.

The use of information standards across these sectors will reduce processing costs at point of collection and publication. This will benefit children and learners as less will be spent on bureaucracy.  Standards also help analysts and software designers to utilise data more efficiently and effectively.

If you would like more information about the ISB or are considering developing data systems and want to learn more about our information standards please contact us.

The website will continue to be developed, including publishing the standards in different readable formats.