Guidance

Parental responsibility measures attendance census

How local authorities should collect and submit data for the annual attendance measures census.

• From: Department for Education
• Published: 25 March 2014
• Last updated: 21 August 2024 — See all updates

Applies to England

Local authorities must complete the parental responsibility measures attendance census each September or October.

You must submit details of the controls you put in place in the previous academic year to help parents make sure their children attend school, including:

• parenting contracts
• parenting orders
• penalty notices for unauthorised absence
• number of cases you’ve entered into the attendance case management system

Important dates

Dates for the 2024 census:

• census opens: 4 September 2024
• deadline for submitting data: 18 October 2024

Submit your data

You’ll need to:

• register and log in with DfE Sign-in
• use COLLECT to submit your data

Please contact your school or local authority approver, if:

• you want to request a DfE Sign-in username or password so you can access COLLECT
• ‘parental responsibility measures attendance’ is not on the list of collections you can see in COLLECT

Get help using DfE Sign-in

If you do not know who your approver is, please use the DfE Sign-in request form.

If you’ve forgotten your password, use DfE Sign-in to reset it. You will need to click ‘Start now’ and then the ‘I’ve forgotten my password’ link.

Note that we’ll only be able to change the status of your data submission to ‘authorised’ once you’ve cleared all errors in the data in COLLECT.

Census documents

The following documents will help you complete the census:

• guide for local authorities
• COLLECT guides

Do you need help?

Submitting data

Please use the service request form if you have any questions about your data. We aim to answer your question within 5 working days.

Feedback

Please use the feedback form if you have any comments about our data collection service, including COLLECT and the helpdesk service.

Published 25 March 2014
Last updated 21 August 2024 + show all updates

1. 21 August 2024

   Updated with dates for 2024 census.

2. 15 August 2023

   Updated with dates for 2023 census and a link to the guidance.

3. 1 September 2022

   Updated the 'Important dates' section for the 2022 census and added a link to the 2022 guide for local authorities.

4. 13 August 2021

   Added 'Important dates' for the 2021 census and a link to the 2021 guide for local authorities.

5. 24 September 2020

   Added information about the Department for Education not collecting parental responsibility measures attendance data in 2020.

6. 27 August 2019

   Dates for the 2019 annual attendance measures census added.

7. 29 January 2019

   Updated 'Submit your data section' and DfE Sign-in help links.

8. 10 December 2018

   Updated COLLECT link from secure access to DfE sign in.

9. 5 September 2018

   Updated the guide for local authorities link in census documents.

10. 14 August 2018

    Added the 2018 dates.

11. 6 September 2017

    Added 2017 census guide for local authorities and submission dates.

12. 24 August 2016

    Added a link to the 2016 census COLLECT guide.

13. 10 August 2016

    Added information about the 2016 census.

14. 1 September 2015

    Added COLLECT guide for the 2015 parental responsibility measures attendance census.

15. 17 August 2015

    Added link to the 2015 census guide for local authorities.

16. 22 July 2015

    Added dates for the 2015 census.

17. 14 August 2014

    Added census and COLLECT guide links to the parental responsibility measures attendance census 2014.

18. 25 March 2014

    First published.