Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of local authority compliance with the national legislation establishing the threshold of (a) 10 sessions of unauthorised absence and (b) a rolling 10-school-week period for issuing fixed penalty notices.

The National Framework for Penalty Notices, which was designed to embed our support-first approach and improve consistency and fairness across the country, was introduced in August 2024.

Every local authority must draw up, and is expected to publish, a local code of conduct, which must be adhered to by all parties issuing a penalty notice. Amongst other things, each code is expected to include details of the national threshold and local arrangements for determining if the support provided has been sufficient. Further details are listed in paragraph 197 of our statutory attendance guidance, which is available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66bf300da44f1c4c23e5bd1b/Working_together_to_improve_school_attendance_-_August_2024.pdf#page=60.

Local authorities are also expected to supply details related to the use of penalty notices in their area as part of the parental responsibility measures census, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/parental-responsibility-measures-statistics-guide.

Data is collected annually for the previous academic year. The department expects the first set of data related to after the introduction of the National Framework to be published in January 2026.