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Written question asked by John Hayes (Conservative) on Monday, 16 October 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 18 October 2006. It was answered by Lord Knight of Weymouth (Labour) on Monday, 23 October 2006 on behalf of the Department for Education and Skills.

Unauthorised Absence

Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills pursuant to the Answer of 6 March 2006, Official Report, column 1235W, to the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke),
Answer

The £0.2 million expenditure mentioned in the previous reply on events for local authorities includes termly meetings of local authority attendance leaders in each English region. These meetings are organised and facilitated by the National Strategies’ Assistant Regional Advisors for Attendance. The purpose of each meeting is to present current developments and to share effective practice on attendance management between local authorities. A separate conference was held on 21 September 2005 for selected local authorities on improving school attendance.The eight attendance advisers who were seconded to my Department from local authorities were: Ron Collinson; Sandra Fletcher; Richard Harvey; Ken Johnson; Linda Rundle; Hilary Shaw; John Smail; and Ingvar Spencer. Their costs ranged between £32,000 and £71,000 and reflected their local authority salary. This was paid pro-rata as some of the advisers only worked for the Department on a part-time basis. Each received an amount for travel and subsistence and, in one case, for administrative support.The current Capita National Strategies Assistant Regional Advisors for Attendance team is made up of: Senior Regional Attendance Advisor: Sue Bainbridge; Current Assistant Regional Advisors for Attendance: Margaret Bleet; Heather Clapp; Chris Gabbett (from January 2007); Jean Gunning; Kenneth Hart; Colin Logan; Linda Rundle; Peter Walker; and Paul Wright. The previous Assistant Regional Advisors for Attendance were: Trevor Folley; Pippa Jackson; and Sam Penn.The salary scale for the Senior Regional Attendance Advisor is £59,963-£63,456. The salary scale for the Assistant Regional Advisors for Attendance is £51,984-£55,339.My Department does not collect pupil absence figures on a quarterly basis.£11.25 million was made available to fund electronic registration systems in around 530 secondary schools with high levels of unauthorised absence. Schools selected the system and the provider that best suited their needs. The following table shows the total amounts by supplier in grants awarded to schools.

Supplier Total grants awarded (£)
CCM 967,060
Radun 110,430
Easy Trace 24,080
Capita 5,252,260
RM 211,420
Tasc 823,880
Pearson 108,020
Bromcom 2,634,190
Bell 68,950
Nedap 19,170
Talmos 25,590
Quinetic 67,470
Sentinel 21,390

The effectiveness of the e-registration funding was evaluated by the Centre for Educational Development, Appraisal and Research at the University of Warwick. Their report was published in May 2006 and a copy has been placed in the Library.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
95349; 450 c1587-9W;450 c1593-5W
Session
2005-06
Subjects
Truancy
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk