Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the changes to attendance and penalty notice regulations that came into effect on 19 August 2024 on school (a) staffing and (b) workload.

The changes to the regulations governing the school attendance register simplify and consolidate what is recorded in the attendance register by schools, reducing their complexity and burden on schools.

The changes to the penalty notice regulations aimed to improve the consistency in how penalty notices are used across the country, ending the previous postcode lottery. 81% of school or academy trust respondents agreed with the idea of a consistent national threshold for considering a penalty notice in the 2022 public consultation, which is available here: https://consult.education.gov.uk/school-attendance-policy-and-strategy-team/school-registers-and-national-thresholds-for-legal/supporting_documents/Consultation%20Document_Pupil%20Registration%20Regulations_Thresholds%20Legal%20Intervention.pdf.

Local authorities require information from schools to process a penalty notice. How this is done is agreed locally and should not place an undue burden on schools.

We will keep the policies under review through regular engagement with schools.