Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the email from the Secretary of State for Education to school leaders and others on 20 July entitled 'Thank you for your work this year', (1) how many people were sent that email, (2) what proportion of recipients were sent it by virtue of (a) having signed up to receive it, (b) being school leaders, or (c) both, (3) what were the open rates for that email in respect of each of the categories above, and (4) what codes of guidance around the political nature of emails govern the (i) tone, and (ii) content, sent to headteachers by the Secretary of State.

The end of term email from the Secretary of State was sent to 45,418 email addresses. Of those recipients:

• 27,064 were subscribers who had opted to receive these updates from the Secretary of State.
• 21,850 were school leader contact email addresses held by the department for school leaders (all primary and secondary schools (England only), including specialist settings. This includes Pupil Referral Units and Alternative Provision providers, but excludes independent schools, such as trust accounting officers.
• To note: the email platform used removes any duplication between these two data sets, so the final figure (45,418 email addresses) is not a sum of a) and b).

The email has a 45% unique open rate. It was opened 60,245 times as of 26 July 2023, indicating that it had been forwarded beyond the original contact list. The open rate cannot be broken down by categories of school leaders versus subscribers.

As with all departmental communications, Civil Service advice is provided on tone and content, along with factual accuracy checks to ensure it meets the needs of the audience it is intended for.