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SP64

Review of school attendance monitoring guidance

Southport Inquiry · The Southport Inquiry Report: Phase 1 · Issued 13 April 2026 · Addressed to: Department for Education

Government responseDepartment for Education: Accepted (Jul 2026)

DeliveryNo statement from Department for Education found

Recommendation, verbatim from the inquiry

●Inquiry recommendation

The Department for Education should undertake a targeted review, engaging with a representative sample of local authorities, to check both that the current (improved) guidance is now sufficient and understood and that the system for monitoring school attendance is being followed in practice and meets the need in cross border cases.

Southport Inquiry, The Southport Inquiry Report: Phase 1 · 13 Apr 2026 Source PDF →

Published evidence summary

AI-generated evidence summary

In July 2026, HM Government stated that the Department for Education accepted the recommendation and expected to complete implementation by late 2026, with regional workshops across England planned for September 2026 to test understanding of attendance monitoring guidance and cross-border issues with local authorities and attendance officers (Home Office response, Jul 2026). The record holds no update since the government's response of July 2026 (Home Office response, Jul 2026).

Sources

AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 26 Sep 2026.

Report-level response context

The government's response to Phase 1 (CP 1623, 2 July 2026) agreed with all 67 recommendations in one sentence, and names only 39 of them individually. Where a recommendation is not named, the response shown is the passage the response gives for the group it belongs to (the recommendations for organisations outside central government, or the recommendations to policing bodies), which is not a response to that recommendation alone; the response does not list the members of any group. The 10 recommendations for Phase 2 of the Inquiry to consider show no response: the response introduces them (paragraph 20) but answers none of them. The government accepts the recommendations that are for central government to deliver. Where a recommendation is for an organisation outside central government, the government's agreement is not that organisation's acceptance.

Government response

●Department for Education · Accepted · 2 Jul 2026

Words of: HM Government, Government Response to Phase 1 of the Southport Inquiry (CP 1623), presented to Parliament by the Home Secretary, 2 July 2026

The Department for Education is the lead department and expects to complete the implementation of this recommendation by late 2026. Progress and next steps:
- Regional workshops with local authorities across England are planned for September 2026.
- These workshops will test understanding of guidance on attendance monitoring and cross-border issues.
- Understanding of this guidance will also be tested with local authority attendance officers through their representative body.

Extract from: Government Response to Phase 1 of the Southport Inquiry

Delivery

No statement on delivery from Department for Education has been found in the sources searched. This is separate from the response above.

How this page is built

The recommendation and the government responses are verbatim from primary documents. Delivery statements and other bodies' findings are shown in their own words, each with its source. The summary is written by this site and labelled as such. The Index does not paraphrase sources or characterise intent; it records what has been published.