Section 444 of the Education Act 1996 for their child's non-attendance at school

Request

Follow on from 17078401

With regards to my question 2 ' I wondered if it's possible to cross-reference the children named in the prosecutions for non-attendance with the children recorded as having an EHCP in your council? 

I appreciate that 6 years of data on this question would take too long to search ' so I'd like to refine my previous FOI questions down to one question (original question 2) for just one year of data (2024/25). 

Are you able to answer this question below ' for solely the year 2024/25 within the 18 hour time limit? 

2. The number of prosecutions initiated in 2024/25 by the Local Authority against parents under Section 444 of the Education Act 1996 for their child's non-attendance at school, where the child concerned had an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) at the time the prosecution was initiated.

Decision

1. See table below

Academic year   Prosecutions

2019/20               293

2020/21                77

2021/22               124

2022/23               149

2023/24               181

2024/25              185

 

2-3. This information is not collated and would involve significant analysing of individual parent/child documents over 6 years and therefore would be exempt under Section 12.

4. There are 22 of the prosecutions that involved a child with an open EHCP at the date of entry.

Reference number
FOI 17397753
Date request received
28/07/26
Date of decision
19/08/26