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Councils issue almost half a million absence fines

The number of penalty notices handed for unauthorised absences rose 22% in the year before reforms to the process came in

The number of penalty notices handed for unauthorised absences rose 22% in the year before reforms to the process came in

The number of absence fines issued to parents soared to almost half a million last year, a rise of 22 per cent.

Department for Education data shows councils issued 487,344 penalty notices for unauthorised absences issued in 2023-24, up from 398,800 in 2022-23.

Local authorities issue the fines on behalf of schools.

The data covers the last academic year before fines were hiked from £60 to £80 in September 2024.

As usual, the vast majority (91 per cent) of the fines are for unauthorised family holiday absence.

The number of fines had risen gradually since current records began in 2009.

That increase became more pronounced when the law changed in 2013 to state that term time leave should only be granted in exceptional circumstances.

The rise became even sharper after 2015, when a parent lost a Supreme Court case against a £120 fine issued by the Isle of Wight.

No fines were issued during the pandemic, and fewer fines were issued in its wake as schools continued to grapple with the fallout from Covid.

But in the last two years numbers have soared again, and are now the highest on record.

Explore capping ‘exorbitant’ holiday charges, says union

Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of ASCL, said leaders “take no pleasure in parents being fined, but must have clear, consistent policies in place that emphasise the importance of attendance. 

“There is a longstanding issue of exorbitant prices being charged by the travel industry during school holiday periods. We can understand why some parents want to take holidays at other times of year as this may be the only way it is affordable, even with the threat of a fine.

“However, we must do something to reverse the trend of a growing number of pupils missing out on a week or more of school. This is damaging to their education as well as disruptive for their class and teachers, who must then spend time helping them catch up on work they have missed.”

He added there was “no simple resolution to this issue, but we do think it is time for the government to explore ways in which they could restrain travel firms from raising their prices during school holidays.

“We cannot see how this problem can be solved another way.”  

‘Large local variation’

The DfE said there was “large local variation” in the number of fines issued. Twenty-six of 153 councils accounted for half of all fines issued.

Barnsley issued 6,151 fines, equivalent to 19.5 per cent of its 31,530 pupils. Doncaster’s rate was 17.6 per cent, while Rochdale had a rate of 17 per cent.

Warrington, the Isles of Scilly and City of London issued none. Warrington has a policy of not issuing fines, while the other two council areas are very small.

New guidance that came into force in September aims to address inconsistencies.

Schools now have to consider a fine if a pupil misses 10 sessions (half days) of unauthorised absence in a rolling period of 10 school weeks. They should “not have a blanket position of issuing or not issuing penalty notices”.

But that won’t have affected this data, which covers the year to July 2024.

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One comment

  1. David Culshaw

    doing the simple maths of the report, that means fines of 29.24 Million pounds, how much money was actually recovered by these ‘fines’ ?

    what is the money used for ?, so in the course of 5 years at the pro rata fine of 60/80 x 0.5M
    thats means more than 146 Million pounds will be raised.

    Where does this money go, what improvements are made in Council run school’s by these funds being a basic floating charge.