Research Report · June 2026 · Holiday Extras · research hub
Term-Time Fines:
A Postcode Lottery
Freedom of Information data reveals how the chance of a school-absence fine actually being collected depends almost entirely on where you live.
Blackpool's collection rate — lowest in the dataset
Rutland's collection rate — highest in the dataset
of councils contacted provided no usable collection data
fines issued by Lancashire — the highest of any responding council
A fine that isn't collected isn't a deterrent
Holiday Extras, the UK's market leader in airport extras, submitted Freedom of Information requests to 30 local authorities across England asking a simple question: when you issue a penalty notice for a term-time school absence, do you actually collect it? The answers expose a system that is applied so inconsistently that, for a growing number of families, the fine has become little more than an optional travel surcharge.
Nationally, 93% of all penalty notices issued in 2024/25 were for term-time holidays. The total number of notices has risen by nearly 30% since 2022/23 and by nearly 300% since 2016/17. Fines are being issued at record rates. Whether they are being collected with anything like the same consistency is, as this data shows, an entirely different matter.
Among the 16 councils that provided comparable data, collection rates run from 39% in Blackpool to 100% in Rutland. That gap is not a minor administrative quirk — it means two families fined the same amount for the same offence face a fundamentally different financial reality depending on which side of a council boundary they live on. This report sets out the full picture, council by council, and asks what that means for fairness, enforcement, and the families making very rational calculations about the cost of a term-time holiday.
The data exposes something the system would rather not admit. For a growing number of families, the term-time fine has become a travel fee, not a deterrent. When the chance of actually paying it depends on your council, and the savings on flights can be double or triple the fine, it’s inevitable that families are doing the maths.Hugo Loudon, CFO — Holiday Extras
How the data was gathered
Holiday Extras submitted Freedom of Information requests to 30 local authorities across England between autumn 2024 and spring 2025, selected to reflect a range of unauthorised absence rates and include major cities.
| Councils contacted | 30 local authorities across England |
| Council selection | Top 10 and bottom 10 by unauthorised absence rate in 2024/25, plus 10 major cities |
| Data requested | Total penalty notices issued; total value issued; total value collected — for Autumn Term 2024 and Spring Term 2025 |
| Councils providing usable comparative data | 16 of 32 rows (including one header row) in the dataset |
| Non-disclosure | Walsall and Gloucestershire cited Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act; others directed Holiday Extras to published government statistics |
| National figures | Department for Education Parental Responsibility Measures statistical release (2024/25) |
| Flight price data | Skyscanner (June 2026) |
| Collection rate calculation | Figures as provided by councils; may include fines issued but subsequently rescinded |
| Anomalous data | Cambridgeshire recorded £0 total value issued alongside £174,580 collected, producing a negative gap — this is treated as a data reporting error and excluded from collection rate comparisons |
Collection rates range from 39% to 100% — a 61-point chasm
Of the 16 councils that provided usable data, every single one has a different collection rate. The range is so wide that it is impossible to describe the system as operating a consistent national policy.
Blackpool collected just £83,460 of the £213,440 it issued in fines — a rate of 39p in every pound. At the other end, Rutland collected every penny of its £3,720 in fines issued, and Wokingham collected 99% of its £59,520. These are not outliers on the margins of a broadly consistent system. The gap between the best and worst performers is 61 percentage points — more than half the scale.
Among the 16 councils providing comparable data, collection rates range from 39% (Blackpool) to 100% (Rutland) — a 61-point gap that makes a mockery of any claim to uniform national enforcement.
It is also worth noting that 13 of the 32 councils contacted (40.6%) returned no usable collection rate at all — either because they did not hold the data in the requested form, cited legal exemptions, or directed Holiday Extras to national published statistics rather than council-level figures. Two councils — Walsall and Gloucestershire — formally withheld data under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act, a legal basis for non-disclosure that is distinct from simply not providing figures. The true picture of enforcement inconsistency may be even wider than the 16-council dataset suggests.
Bradford collects 95p per pound. Next-door Leeds collects 54p.
The sharpest illustration of the postcode lottery is not between distant regions — it is between two councils that share a border in West Yorkshire and both issued roughly half a million pounds in fines over the same period.
Bradford issued 6,712 fines with a total value of £499,720 and collected £474,680 — a rate of 95%. Leeds issued 5,468 fines with a total value of £485,290 and collected £260,710 — a rate of 54%. Both councils cover the same academic year, the same fine thresholds, and the same national policy framework. The outcome for families is completely different.
| Council | Fines issued | Total issued (£) | Total collected (£) | Collection rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bradford | 6,712 | £499,720 | £474,680 | 95% |
| Leeds | 5,468 | £485,290 | £260,710 | 54% |
Both councils share a border in West Yorkshire. Period: Autumn 2024 – Spring 2025.
In towns that straddle the boundary between the two councils — such as Otley, Menston and Guiseley — two families could send their children to the same school, receive identical fines for the same reason, and face a statistically different risk of ever being required to pay. A Leeds parent issued a £160 fine has, on the data available, roughly a coin-flip chance of it being collected. Their Bradford neighbour faces near-certainty.
Bradford and Leeds issued a combined £985,010 in fines over the same period. Bradford collected 95%; Leeds collected just 54% — a 41-point gap between neighbouring councils applying the same national policy.
The fine vs the flight: for many families, the maths already favour travelling
The financial arithmetic of term-time travel has shifted. As fines become more common but less reliably collected, the rational calculus for cost-conscious families is increasingly straightforward.
A family of four flying from Manchester to Tenerife can save up to £700 on flights alone by departing in early September rather than in August, based on Skyscanner data from June 2026. The maximum penalty notice for each parent is £160 if paid promptly — a combined £320 for two parents. In a council with a collection rate below 60%, the realistic expected cost of those fines — accounting for the probability they are never collected — is closer to £190. Against a potential flight saving of £700, the expected fine is not a deterrent; it is a heavily discounted travel fee.
Manchester–Tenerife, early September vs August (Skyscanner, June 2026)
£160 per parent if paid within 21 days
Statistical expected value for a family in Blackpool
National figure — Department for Education, 2024/25
This is not an argument for ignoring children's education. It is an observation about how rational actors respond to inconsistently enforced rules. The Department for Education's own data shows that 93% of all penalty notices in 2024/25 were for term-time holidays, and the volume has risen by nearly 300% since 2016/17. Fines are becoming part of the expected cost of term-time travel — not a prohibition of it.
High-volume councils: Lancashire and Essex issue the most fines — and collect them at very different rates
The two largest issuers of fines in the dataset sit at opposite ends of the volume scale but relatively close together on collection — yet their stories are instructive in different ways.
Lancashire issued the most fines of any responding council: 7,701 in total, with a combined value of £621,840. It collected £513,520 — a rate of 83%. Essex was the second-highest issuer at 7,501 fines, with a total value of £573,280, and achieved a stronger collection rate of 90%, collecting £513,840. Essex in particular demonstrates that high-volume issuance and high collection rates are not mutually exclusive — and that the low collection rates seen elsewhere are not an inevitable consequence of scale.
| Council | Total fines issued | Total value issued | Total collected | Collection rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lancashire | 7,701 | £621,840 | £513,520 | 83% |
| Essex | 7,501 | £573,280 | £513,840 | 90% |
| Bradford | 6,712 | £499,720 | £474,680 | 95% |
| Manchester | 6,094 | £488,666 | Not reported | 0% |
| Kent | 6,483 | £518,640 | £374,880 | 72% |
| Leeds | 5,468 | £485,290 | £260,710 | 54% |
One council conspicuously absent from this comparison is Manchester. It issued 6,094 fines with a total value of £488,666 — one of the highest volumes in the dataset — but recorded a 0% collection figure, providing no data.
Autumn volumes dwarf spring — September is the peak enforcement month
Where councils provided a term-by-term breakdown, a consistent seasonal pattern emerges: the autumn term generates significantly more penalty notices than the spring term, pointing to September departures as the primary driver.
Of the 19 councils that provided Autumn 2024 data, the mean number of fines issued was 1,878 (median 1,047). Of the 18 councils that provided Spring 2025 data, the mean fell to 1,230 (median 929) — a drop of roughly 35% in mean volume between terms. This is consistent with the national picture: late-August and early-September holidays offer the greatest savings versus school-holiday prices, making the first weeks of the autumn term the peak period for family travel.
Knowsley provided a monthly breakdown that further illustrates the pattern: 242 absences in September 2024, dropping to 149 in December and 166 in January 2025, before falling sharply to 45 in April. Parents are not randomly pulling children out of school. They are making deliberate, timed decisions — calibrated to school calendars, flight prices, and the probability of enforcement.
What the FOI responses revealed
Please note: the difference between the amounts shown above for questions 2 and 3 is due to a reduced rate if payment is made sooner.
The date the charges are raised may not strictly comply with the date request of 1st September 24 to 31st March 25, as there is a delay due to limited capacity on getting charges raised.
Gave two value costs based on lower/higher value. Have used the lower value. *Some fines issued in Sep 24 for the previous academic year when fine rates were lower. Lower rate: £80. Higher rate: £160.
What needs to change
The data points to a system that is simultaneously expanding in scale and fragmenting in effectiveness. Several structural issues require attention.
Either the policy is worth enforcing uniformly, or it is worth rethinking. What is not acceptable is continuing with a patchwork system where your postcode determines your penalty. The Department for Education needs to look at this honestly.Hugo Loudon, CFO — Holiday Extras
Publish council-level collection rates as standard
The DfE publishes national penalty notice volumes but not council-level collection rates. Without this data being routinely published, accountability is impossible and the postcode lottery continues unexamined.
Investigate non-reporting councils urgently
13 of 32 councils contacted (40.6%) provided no usable collection data. Two formally withheld it under Section 12 FOI exemptions. The DfE should require councils to report collection outcomes as part of standard annual returns.
Address the reporting gap at high-volume urban authorities
Manchester issued nearly 6,100 fines worth almost £490,000 and reported 0% collection.
Review whether the fine level reflects the savings available
A £160 prompt-payment fine against a potential £700 flight saving means the deterrent calculus does not work even where fines are collected reliably. The financial relationship between fine and saving has never been formally reviewed.
Standardise data collection across terms and rate tiers
Councils use different accounting periods, report different rate tiers, and count fines issued versus raised differently. Consistent national definitions are a prerequisite for any meaningful enforcement comparison.
Consider whether inconsistent enforcement undermines the policy's legitimacy
A fine regime where the probability of paying depends on geography is not simply inefficient — it is arguably unfair. Families in high-enforcement councils face a materially different financial risk than families in low-enforcement neighbours for the same behaviour.
About Holiday Extras
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When booking with Holiday Extras, if plans change — no matter what the reason — Flextras ensures it will always be easy and free to cancel and reschedule. The company has been listed eleven times in The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For.
This research was conducted via Freedom of Information requests submitted to 30 local authorities across England. National absence and penalty notice figures are drawn from the Department for Education's Parental Responsibility Measures statistical release (2024/25). Flight price data is from Skyscanner (June 2026).
For more information, contact the Holiday Extras PR team at Gold79: [email protected]
Research note
Freedom of Information requests were submitted to 30 local authorities. Councils were selected to reflect a range of unauthorised absence rates (top 10 and bottom 10 in 2024/25) plus 10 major cities. 16 councils provided usable comparative data. Collection rate percentages are calculated from figures provided by councils and may include fines issued but subsequently rescinded. Cambridgeshire's data is excluded from collection rate comparisons due to an apparent reporting anomaly. Shropshire is categorised by some government frameworks as West Midlands; its regional classification in this report follows the brief.
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