27 June 2017 weekly update

Dear Colleagues

High Needs Funding and LIFT Reviews

As part of the High Needs Funding review we would like to obtain the views of as many schools as possible. Some schools will have their views captured through a HNF review visit but there is also the opportunity express your views by completing the HNF survey (DOCX, 72.8 KB).

Read the details of the High Needs Funding Review from my previous e-bulletin for further information.

Please email your completed survey to Louise.Langley@kent.gov.uk by 21 July 2017.

As part of the LIFT review we would like to obtain the views of as many schools as possible through the completion of this LIFT review questionnaire (DOCX, 53.7 KB).

Read the aims and scope of the LIFT review shared in my previous e-bulletin for more information.

Please email the completed questionnaire to LIFTreview@kent.gov.uk.

Penalty Notices

In April I provided an update on the Supreme Court decision made on 6 April in relation to the definition of regular attendance at school, which in effect gave Headteachers more discretion in setting an expected level of attendance. Since then, we have experienced an increase in requests to issue a Penalty Notice (PN).

As a local authority, our priority is to support schools to improve attendance. The Early Help offer, including the work of the Inclusion and Attendance team, works with families and schools to improve attendance as well as using court action through the Attendance Enforcement Team. This team takes timely legal action against parents who have failed to work with the school and our services while their children have unauthorised absences.

A Penalty Notice is one of several legal measures we use to reduce unauthorised absences. Other actions include prosecution, Education Supervision Orders, School Attendance Orders, Parenting Orders and Simple Cautions. These actions, together with the preventative interventions and advice provided by the School Liaison Officers and Early Help Workers have contributed to the recent improvement in Kent’s overall school attendance rate. At the same time, there has been a significant increase in the number of attendance related prosecutions carried out by Kent County Council, with a total of 1478 parents being taken to court in the past two years.

Inevitably, the decision of the Supreme Court has led to a substantial increase in the number of Penalty Notice requests. However, a large number of the PN requests cannot be processed due to the incomplete or inaccurate information being submitted. Currently only 68% of the PN requests that are received have sufficient and accurate information for the Local Authority to process them. These are returned to the schools concerned, which is a poor use of time and resources, resulting in a backlog of unprocessed requests.

The most common reasons for returning a request to the school are:

1. The leave refusal letter has not been sent to parents
2. The school’s attendance policy has not been updated as we suggested in my last e-bulletin message in April and still states 90% as the expected attendance rate.
3. The leave refusal letter does not warn of the risk of issuing of Penalty Notice and a fine to each parent of each child.
4. The parent requested leave of absence for exceptional circumstances, but the school’s refusal uses the standard wording of “your request for a family holiday”.

While many schools have already taken action to avoid the above mentioned practice which is out of date with current policy, I would ask that schools update their attendance policy and make sure that they double check their PN requests before submitting them to the LA. The PN Guidance and suggested standard letters to help schools to get it right is available on Kelsi here.

In order to deal with the substantial increase in the number of PN requests, we will process Penalty Notice requests using a light touch checking system. In practice this means that if the PN request declaration confirms that the school has read and followed the PN Guidance Notes, the request will be processed without a time consuming check.

Schools should be aware that where they submit a PN request with missing or inaccurate information it will not be possible to action them. Where a Penalty Notice is not paid, we will only prosecute the parent where the public interest and evidence test are met. This means it is very important that the information provided by the school meets all the requirements.

For more information please contact Ming.Zhang@kent.gov.uk, Head of Inclusion and Attendance.

Patrick Leeson
Corporate Director
Children, Young People and Education