GIAS, Ofsted and DfE benchmarking: what each file is for

GIAS is the register of establishments in England. It carries the school name, type, phase, local authority, trust link and the named head as published, and it refreshes daily.

Ofsted structured data arrives as a published monthly CSV. It is not a live API, so inspection data on any product built from it — including ours — is monthly, not daily.

DfE Financial Benchmarking publishes spend by category, such as ICT, catering and premises. It does not publish named suppliers, so nobody can honestly tell you who a school already buys from using this source.

Read together, they answer three different questions: who the school is, how it is judged, and where the money goes.