Blanket rules come into force on fines for pupil truancy

A NATIONAL framework for issuing fines over children playing truant has been launched by the Government amid concerns over too much leniency shown by some local authorities.

Now parents of all pupils who are absent from school for more than five days without good reason will face a fixed penalty notice, the Department for Education announced.

Ministers said this would end a “postcode lottery” over how councils tackle school absences.

In a consultation document published yesterday, the Government proposed that registers of pupils be kept electronically, with the Education Secretary given central access to the data.

Councils will also be able to access all attendance data for schools in their area more easily in order to crackdown on pupils with too many absences.

Parents whose children have five days of unauthorised absence or lateness within one term, take holidays in term-time, or are out in public during the first five days of an exclusion, will face a fine, the plans suggest.

A parent would face a maximum of two fines for each child within the school year, with prosecution considered as the next step if this limit was reached.

The Government said the new plans would level up a system where parents are fined for absence in some areas and not in others.

The proposals would also tighten up rules on pupil absence in the case of illness. The current regulations allow a pupil’s name to be deleted from registers if their health makes it unlikely they can attend school.

The Government said this is “outdated given changes to provision for pupils with medical conditions to enable many of them to continue their education in their own school”.

It also suggests online learning could be recorded in the case of absence, as they “recognise that as remote education technology develops...there may be a need for this type of participation to be recorded”.

And they suggest that pupils younger than compulsory schooling age should still have their absence recorded, whereas currently their attendance does not need to be recorded by law.

Nadhim Zahawi, the Education Secretary, said: “I know from the Children’s Commissioner’s work on school attendance that children themselves hugely value being in school with their teachers and their friends.

“My job is to make sure that every child can get those school experiences... and help tackle persistent absence.”