Peter Dwyer
Corporate Director - Children and Young People’s Service
Carolyn Bird
Assistant Director, Prevention and Commissioning
Your ref: / MM/MF
Our ref: / Marc Mason, Commissioning and Developments Manager
County Hall, Racecourse Lane, Northallerton DL7 8AE
Contact: / E-mail:
Web: www.northyorks.gov.uk
Telephone: 01609 532151
July 13th 2016
Dear Headteacher,
Update on the Local Authority’s position with regard to Penalty Notices for Holiday in Term time
I have previously set out the Local Authority’s position with regard to the issuing of Penalty Notices for leave of absence in term time in a letter from me dated May 16th 2016. This was as a result of the school attendance case of the Isle of Wight Council v Mr Platt being unsuccessfully appealed in the High Court on the 13th May 2016. As it has national importance, the case is now being appealed to the Supreme Court later this year, with the backing of the DfE.
Until the Supreme Court judgement is known or the Government changes its guidance, schools continue to be expected to follow DfE guidance and request the issue of Penalty Notices from the Local Authority if parents take their child(ren) out of school for a holiday in term time and there are no exceptional circumstances which justify an absence of 10 sessions or more in a block or over a 4 month period.
However, the threshold required to be met for the Local Authority to issue a Penalty Notice has changed due to the High Court ruling. Although we still do not have a definition of what ‘irregular’ attendance is, it was deemed lawful for magistrates to consider the ‘bigger picture’ regarding the child’s absence other than the holiday. We are interpreting this to mean the child(ren) need to have 90% attendance and under with a minimum of 20 sessions unauthorised absence (including the holiday) over a reasonable period of time, which we feel should be 200 sessions (equating to approximately 6 months). This has meant that far fewer Penalty Notice requests from schools are now meeting the Local Authority’s criteria for the issue of the Penalty Notice.
We now feel that an unnecessary burden is being placed on you in submitting the current amount of required paperwork for a Penalty Notice request. Therefore, until the issue is resolved in the Supreme Court or by a change in the guidance, it will now be sufficient for you to only submit to the Local Authority an electronic attendance registration certificate for the previous six months attendance of the child (ren) concerned with a covering letter. The Local Authority’s Attendance and Enforcement Officers will subsequently contact you where there is a need to pursue further evidence in cases where the attendance criteria has been met for issue.
Please refer to the CYPS.Info website (under School Attendance) for further updates or contact one of the Local Authority’s Attendance and Enforcement Officers for advice (Kate Flinton on 01609 797232 for Scarborough and Ryedale and Julie Parrish on 01609 798013 for the rest of the County).
Yours sincerely

Marc Mason
Commissioning and Developments Manager
Children and Young People’s Service