Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if her Department will release an estimation of the legal costs incurred in prosecuting school attendance offences in each of the last three academic years.

The department does not hold data on the legal costs incurred in prosecuting school attendance offences.

Statutory guidance on attendance makes it clear that legal intervention, including prosecution, should be considered only where support has been exhausted, where it has not been engaged with, or in the cases of term-time holidays, where support is not appropriate.

The guidance also sets out clear expectations for how schools, local authorities and wider services should work together to support attendance for all children.