Effect of penalty notice being issued
The Penalty Notice is presumed to be served on the parent to whom it is sent on the second working day after it was posted.
For a first offence, if a parent pays the Penalty Notice within 21 days from the date it is served the sum due from the parent to discharge the Penalty Notice is £80.
The parent can still pay the Notice after 21 days, but the payment increases to £160. This must be paid before 28 days have passed from the date of service.
If a parent pays the amount due within the times set out above, then no further action will be taken against that parent for the offence on the date(s) set out in the Penalty Notice.
For a further offence within a three-year rolling period, the payment will be £160. There is no discretion permitted for early payment.
Once a Penalty Notice has been issued, no prosecution for the non-attendance detailed in the Penalty Notice can be brought against the parent until the payment period of 28 days has passed and the Penalty has not been paid.
All payments must be made to the LA.
A third Penalty Notice cannot be issued to the same parent in respect of the same child within 3 years of the date of issue of the first. In a case where the national threshold is met for a third time (or subsequent times) within those 3 years, alternative action should be taken instead. This will often include considering prosecution but may include other tools such as one of the other attendance legal interventions.
For the purpose of the escalation process, previous Penalty Notices include those not paid (including where prosecution was taken forward and the parent pleaded or was found guilty) but not those which were withdrawn. Schools will be responsible for checking if previous PN’s have been issued when requesting the LA progress a new PN. If data cannot be obtained, it is to be assumed that this is a first offence.
If a Penalty Notice is issued. whether paid or not. it may be used in evidence in subsequent criminal proceedings in relation to either:
- non-school attendance or
- being in a public place during school hours whilst excluded from school.
This includes regular patterns of term time absence such as unauthorised annual holidays.