Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people were given a custodial sentence for not paying a fine further to a School Attendance Order by (a) race and (b) gender during the 2023-24 school year.

The Ministry of Justice routinely publishes data concerning sentence outcomes by offence as part of the Criminal Justice Statistics Quarterly ‘Outcomes by offence’ tool which is available at this link: Criminal justice statistics quarterly.

However, information is not held and separately identifiable concerning outcomes relating to non-payment of fines imposed following a conviction for the offence of failure to comply with a School Attendance Order (section 443 of the Education Act 1996). To provide this information would require a review of individual case files and would be disproportionate to costs incurred.