Now parents face an automatic £120 f ine over term-time trips

PARENTS could face automatic £120 fines for any unauthorised termtime holidays under Government plans.

Ministers are introducing national standards to end the ‘postcode lottery’ in the use of penalty notices for children missing school.

Under the proposals, families would also meet the ‘threshold’ for receiving fines if their child has more than five days of unauthorised absence, including lateness, in any one term.

The crackdown is designed to boost attendance in schools post-pandemic – but parent groups have condemned the ‘sledgehammer approach’.

Fixed penalty notices are £120, reduced to £60 if paid within 21 days. Currently, each authority decides the thresholds for issuing these fines to families.

However, ministers are frustrated that some councils are too lax and they want more ‘consistency’ around the country to help increase attendance levels.

The Department for Education yesterday launched a consultation to determine the circumstances for issuing these fines. The document says at present ‘enforcement for an absence may be taken against a parent living in one local authority’s area, but the same absence would not be subject to enforcement in a neighbouring authority’s area’.

National thresholds would replace individual local authority codes of conduct. However, councils would still make individual case-by- case decisions about whether a fine is appropriate when a threshold is met.

The Government proposes that a penalty notice must be considered for ‘any incidence of unauthorised holiday in term time’ and five days of unauthorised absence or lateness where support ‘has not been successnext ful, has not been engaged with, or is not appropriate’.

This would also apply to a child being found in a public place without reasonable ‘justification’ during the first five days of an exclusion.

A parent would face a maximum of two fines for each child within the school year, with prosecution considered as the step if this limit is reached under the proposals. Teachers would also be required to inform their local authorities if a pupil is absent because of sickness for 15 days or more, to ensure they can arrange suitable schooling.

Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi said: ‘The plans set out today to reform how absence fines operate, alongside our Schools Bill currently going through Parliament, will improve consistency across the country and help tackle persistent absence.’

But Arabella Skinner, of parents’ group Us For Them, said: ‘It’s to be lauded that DfE is focusing on ensuring children are in school, but after two years of restrictions to in- person schooling and the impact that has had on children, the sledgehammer approach of fining parents cannot be the right one.’

‘Tackle persistent absence’