Legislate to ban FPNs and prosecutions related to school attendance

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Government has no plans to ban fixed penalty notices or prosecutions for non-attendance. Both influence parental behaviour, where support has been exhausted, not engaged with or is inappropriate.

The Government has no plans to ban fixed penalty notices (FPNs) or prosecutions for non-attendance. Both measures are important in influencing parental behaviour in cases where support has been exhausted, not engaged with or is not appropriate, such as in the case of term-time holidays. Attendance data for unauthorised absence in the 2024-25 academic year showed our approach is having a positive impact, as the proportion of absence due to unauthorised holiday fell from 0.53% in 2023/24 to 0.48% in 2024/25 and the overall rate of absence fell by 0.37 percentage points. 93% of penalty notices issued in 2024-25 were for unauthorised term-time holidays, which shows that FPNs are being used primarily in circumstances where support is not appropriate, as intended by the national framework introduced in August 2024. The Department’s Working Together to Improve School Attendance guidance is clear that legal intervention tools such as FPNs and prosecutions, should be used only as a last resort. Schools are expected to pursue a ‘support first’ approach to tackle underlying causes of non-attendance. The guidance emphasises the importance of schools and local authorities working together with children and their parents to address barriers to attendance and to build strong, trusting relationships. Legal interventions such as fixed penalty notices and prosecutions should be considered only where this support has not been effective or is not appropriate. Parents have a legal duty under the Education Act 1996 to ensure that their child of compulsory school age (5-16) receives a full‑time education, either by attending school or otherwise. Where a child is registered at a school, parents must ensure they attend regularly. Parents can be penalised if their child is absent from school without authorisation. The Government recognises that there are circumstances in which a pupil is unable to attend school for a legally recognised reason. The Education Act 1996 sets out the situations in which an absent pupil will not be taken to have failed to attend school regularly, including illness or other unavoidable circumstances, religious observance, where the school has given prior permission for absence, or where the local authority has not fulfilled any duty it has to help the child attend. Schools must record attendance in line with the School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2024 and with regard to the DfE’s statutory guidance ‘Working together to improve school attendance’. Decisions about how an absence should be recorded depend on the individual facts of each case. Headteachers and school staff know their pupils well and are therefore best placed to decide how an absence should be recorded. In the majority of cases, a parent’s notification that their child is ill should be sufficient for the school to authorise the absence using code I (illness). Schools also have discretion to grant a leave of absence in exceptional circumstances, such as family emergencies, and parents should speak to their headteacher and present their case where they feel that such an absence is required. Where pupils are not attending school due to unmet needs, the Department’s guidance sets out clear expectations on how schools, local authorities and wider services work together with parents to provide the right support to improve attendance. For these reasons, the government does not believe that banning fixed penalty notices and prosecutions will be in the best interests of addressing school non-attendance and upholding a child’s right to a full-time education. The current system expects schools, trusts and local authorities to work with parents to provide support first and where this fails or is not appropriate, to consider the full range of legal interventions. It is for individual schools and local authorities to decide whether to use them in an individual case after considering the individual circumstances of a family. Department for Education