Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make it his policy to require schools to have an attendance policy; and what steps he is taking to ensure that schools adhere to statutory guidance on schools, academy trusts and governing bodies of maintained schools in relation to attendance management and improvement.

The department recently consulted on several proposals to improve the quality and consistency of attendance support across the country. These include:

• Requiring schools to have an attendance policy and have regard to statutory guidance on the expectations of schools, academy trusts and governing bodies of maintained schools on attendance management and improvement.
• Introducing guidance on the expectations of local authority attendance services.
• A clearer more consistent national framework for the use of attendance legal intervention, including a new regulatory framework for issuing fixed penalty notices for absence.

The department will be publishing our response to the consultation in due course.

We have been working closely with local authorities throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to support them to maximise attendance, sharing best practice through a series of webinars. The department has also appointed a team of expert attendance advisers who are working closely with several local authorities to review their current approach to attendance and make improvements. My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, recently established an alliance of national leaders from education, children’s social care, and other services to address the barriers to regular school attendance.