Cheshire council explains why it doesn't issue fines to parents whose children don't turn up at school

A Cheshire council is running a ‘fast-track prosecution’ scheme for parents whose children don’t turn up at school, making it the only authority in the North of England not to issue fines for absence.

Warrington council has bucked the trend which has seen a big rise in the number of penalty notices issued to parents amid fears that attendance levels are now much lower than before the pandemic.

The latest statistics from the Department for Education reveal that nearly 145,000 penalty notices were issued to parents in the North in the 2022/23 school year, the highest ever recorded and up from just 87,000 the year before.

More than 132,000 of those fines were due to unauthorised term-time holidays, again a record high, while 85 were due to late attendance, and around 13,000 were for other reasons.

Parents have a legal duty to make sure their child attends school, and if they don’t they can be issued with a £60 fine that must be paid within 21 days, otherwise the amount increases to £120.

If still unpaid after 28 days, the parents can be taken to court, where they can face fines of up to £2,500 or a three month prison sentence. Last academic year, more than 10,000 parents in the North were taken to court – up from 8,000 the year before, and again a record number.

But across the region local authorities take very different approaches to fining parents over non-attendance. Doncaster Council issued 16.2 fines for every 100 pupils in the area compared to just 0.2 fines issued for every 100 pupils in Cumbria.

Warrington issued not a single fine to parents in 12 months, with a spokesperson telling The Northern Agenda politics newsletter it operates a ‘Fast-Track’ prosecution process “to ensure better management of poor school attendance”.

Other than City of London and the Isle of Scilly, which both have very small populations, it’s the only local authority in the country not to issue a fine.

Its scheme involves the school, parents and a local “attendance team” setting time limited targets for the improvement of individual pupils’ attendance. If the targets are not met within nine weeks and all other avenues of support have failed, the council “may take legal action through the courts”.

In the last academic year some 266 parents have been placed on the fast track process and 46 were found guilty in court of failing to ensure the regular attendance of their child at school.

Elsewhere in Cheshire, Cheshire East issued 911 fines, giving it a rate of 1.9 per 100 pupils. Cheshire West and Chester issued 2,220 fines, giving it a rate of 4.9 and Halton handed out 881 penalty notices, meaning its rate was 5.0. You can see the figures for your area using our postcode search interactive.

In Cumbria, Isobel Booler of Westmorland and Furness Council, which replaced the county authority last year, explained its low rate of fines by saying: “We work hard with our schools and families to ensure that support to improve school attendance is offered in the first instance and legal sanctions are only issued as a last resort.

“This approach is very much in line with the new Department of Education guidance and we believe a collaborative approach is the best way to improve school attendance.”

In Doncaster, which has the highest rate of fines in the country, a council spokeswoman said most penalty notices were issued for term-time holidays, adding: “Penalty notices are issued as a last resort and following a number of alternative engagements with parents to improve attendance.”

Warrington issued not a single fine to parents in 12 months, but operates a ‘Fast-Track’ prosecution process

She added: “This year, in partnership with the Department for Education and alongside schools, we have engaged with the Barnardos attendance mentoring project, working with young people and their families to overcome barriers to attending school.”

The rise in fines follows ongoing issues with attendance seen since the Covid crisis. In the last academic year, 7.5% of schooling was missed, compared to an average absence rate of around 4.5% before the pandemic.

In the North East, headteacher Andy Byers had a harsh message for parents of students at Durham’s Framwellgate School last week, on what he described as an “unremarkable Wednesday” where 10% of the young people – and 17% of Year 11s – simply did not turn up.

“These patterns of absence are now considered normal in schools,” wrote Mr Byers in a letter published on social media , before warning parents of “the significant correlation between absence and exam results”.

“Put simply, students who miss school regularly, reduce their lifetime earning potential because they achieve worse exam results than their peers, and develop poor habits to take into the workplace where high levels of absence, poor punctuality, or an indifferent attitude to responsibility can result in dismissal.”

The issue is on the radar of the Government and Labour, with Education Secretary Gillian Keegan and her opposite number Bridget Phillipson both setting out their plans to tackle it this month.

A Labour government will introduce a national register of children who are not in school in a bid to tackle high rates of persistent absence, promised the MP for Houghton and Sunderland South as she said artificial intelligence will also be used to spot absence trends.

Her speech to the Centre for Social Justice in London came a day after the Conservative Government launched a new drive to try to cut down on the number of children regularly missing school.

Ms Keegan, who grew up in Knowsley, on Merseyside, announced there will be 18 new attendance hubs across six regions, bringing the total to 32, in an effort to help nearly 2,000 schools tackle persistent absence.