About

Get Information about Schools (GIAS) is the Department for Education’s register for several organisation types and where information on other organisations is recorded and maintained.

GIAS is used by the department and key partners to contact establishments, update systems, perform analysis and inform policy decisions, some of which carry funding implications.

Establishment, federation, academy trust and approved local authority users can access their records by signing into their DfE Sign-in (DSI) account.

It is essential that these users ensure their organisations details are up-to-date on the GIAS website, including their governance details (where appliable) which is reflected through The Education Act 1996 (opens in new tab) and the Academies Trust Handbook (ATH) (opens in new tab).

The National Database of Governors

All governance boards for state maintained establishments and academy trusts are required to provide information about people involved in governance for their organisation via GIAS which is also the National Database of Governors (opens in new tab).

More information for establishment, local authority and group users

All establishments have a GIAS record that should be kept up to date. Anyone can access the public site, however, to amend the establishment’s record and access non-public information the site must be accessed via DfE Sign-in (DSI). Each establishment has a DfE Sign-in approver who should ensure the establishment’s record is kept up to date. The approver can assign access to the establishment’s record for other establishment colleagues if they need to. For local authority maintained schools, the local authority is also able to access the establishment’s record to make amendments, and for academies and free schools multi-academy trusts (MATs).

All federations and multi-academy trusts (MATs) have a GIAS record that should be kept up to date. Anyone can access the public site, however to amend the records the following process should be taken by these organisations:

Federation records should be accessed via the federation establishment’s DfE Sign-in accounts.

Multi-academy trust (MAT) records should be accessed via the multi-academy trust DfE Sign-in (DSI) account. Each multi-academy trust has a DSI approver who can assign access to the MAT record for other colleagues if they wish to.

GIAS is the legislative avenue for local authority maintained schools to inform the Secretary of State of changes to their organisation made through the prescribed alterations regulation process: “Making significant changes (‘prescribed alterations’) to maintained schools” (opens in new tab) . For academies the “Making significant changes to an open academy and closure by mutual agreement guidance” (opens in new tab) sets out that GIAS must be kept up-to-date.