21. The Government undertook a full new burdens assessment in Spring 2022 which is publicly available on gov.uk. The assessment was undertaken with the Association of Directors of Childrens Services (ADCS), Local Government Association (LGA) and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. It was based on the available evidence at the time from those local authorities already delivering the expectations in the guidance and who were willing to share financial data with the Department. It showed that those local authorities (which varied in size and type) were doing so with or below the national average number of local authority staff per pupil (one member of staff per 5,490 pupils). 22. In the 18 months since this initial assessment was done, more local authorities have reshaped their services to meet the new expectations, in many cases drawing on support from the Department’s attendance adviser programme. Throughout that period the Department has kept the burdens assessment under review. The Department has also provided clarification on aspects of the guidance – including, for example, that it does not preclude authorities continuing to trade elements of attendance services that go beyond the core expectations, and that those expectations can be met in different ways. 23. The guidance has now been implemented in more local authorities at or slightly below the national average staff to pupil ratio. Prior to the guidance being published there was significant variation in the spend per local authority on attendance, with some local authorities having historically much lower staffing levels than the average. Since publication, as more local authorities have reformed their services, the national average staffing level per pupil has not increased. Based on this emerging evidence, our view therefore remains that the expectations can be met with the national average number of staff per pupil, in line with the original impact assessment. 24. We expect that the day-to-day running of attendance services post-transition can be delivered within existing local authority education and social care budgets and should reduce any duplication across different agencies and services. Some early adopters have reported benefits from integrating attendance into other services, and providing better, more joined up whole family support that has the potential to reduce demand for higher cost crisis services over time. 25. On the Committee’s specific proposal to ring fence funding for attendance, the core attendance functions of a local authority as set out in the guidance are one of the central services provided to all schools that can and should continue to be funded through the Central School Services Block (CSSB) of the Dedicated Schools Grant. This is protected by legislation to ensure local authorities have resources to provide the core service to schools. None of the funding provided via this route is ringfenced for a specific service - reflecting that local authorities are best placed to determine how to balance their legal responsibilities within the funding available to them. 26. Following further work with ADCS, the Department has published a set of worked examples to show the way different local authorities have approached implementing the guidance. The Department continues to work closely with the local authority sector to support this transition, identifying and sharing effective practice, as well as bringing together groups of local authorities with common concerns and approaches.