Code of conduct for issuing penalty notices for unauthorised absence from school

Within Buckinghamshire, the responsibility for issuing penalty notices and managing arrangements for their payment and the collections of monies rests with the County Attendance Team.

This ensures that all procedures relating to penalty notices are consistently applied, that enforcement action is not duplicated and that any subsequent court action is integrated into the existing attendance procedures.

Penalty notices will only be issued within the terms of the Code of Conduct. The County Attendance Team will ensure that penalty notices are properly issued and only issued for offences where the Buckinghamshire Council is willing and able to prosecute.

Penalty notices will not be issued in person but either by post or hand delivered.

No parent will receive more than two separate penalty notices resulting from the unauthorised absence of an individual child in a three-year rolling period. Penalty notices will be issued to each parent/carer of an individual child and, where appropriate, in respect of more than one individual child.

In cases where families are made up of more than one individual child whose absence has not been authorised more than one penalty notice may be issued. The Local Authority will ask schools to carry out checks with other schools where there are siblings attending different schools. This is to ensure there is consistency handling cases of unauthorised absences and ensure the National Threshold is being appropriately applied. In such circumstances, each case will be the subject of careful consideration by the County Attendance Team and discussion with the headteacher(s) as appropriate.

The County Attendance Team will consider requests from schools, the police, other agencies such as social care or the Youth Justice and Support Team and neighbouring authorities as appropriate for issue of a penalty notice.

In the case of pupils attending school outside of Buckinghamshire, the County Attendance Team will liaise with neighbouring local authorities to ensure that no parent receives more than two penalty notices in a three-year rolling period.