Reducing school absence: Innovation lessons from the last Labour government

The last Labour government’s success in tackling complex policy problems like school absence provides a blueprint for Keir Starmer’s government.

This report, written by Moira Wallace, former director of the Social Exclusion Unit set up by Tony Blair, is the first in a new series of case studies exploring how Labour can learn from its experience of tackling complex problems when it was last in government.

The incoming Blair government in 1997 – like Starmer’s in 2024 – inherited high levels of many social problems such as school absence. But a cross-sectoral approach saw absence rates in English schools fall almost without interruption for more than a decade from 2000–01, and over the seven years from 2006-07 severe absence in secondary schools was halved and persistent absence cut by 45%.

However, this downward trend petered out in the mid-2010s and school absence rates subsequently exploded in the wake of the pandemic.

This urgent problem is well beyond what schools can tackle on their own. The report makes recommendations on how the government should tackle school absence now, and draws out wider lessons for the approach to mission-led government.

A Briefing summarising the report's key findings can be found at the bottom of this page (PDF).