Oral question asked in the House of Commons, by Lindsay Hoyle (Labour). It was answered on Monday, 12 November 2007 on behalf of the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

Truancy

Question: My hon. Friend the Minister is right that persistent truancy is a major problem, but there is also the problem of peer pressure on younger people to stay away from school, which leads to drink and drug problems and petty crime. What can we do to ensure that local education authorities across the country have the right funding and do not cut back on truancy and welfare officers? Giving them powers to act is important.

Answer: It is very important. Through the national strategies and other schemes, we are concentrating on behaviour, truancy, peer mentoring, bullying and all the things that may impact on truancy. My hon. Friend is right that we should emphasise persistent absence because about 2 per cent. of pupils are responsible for over half of those unauthorised absences that we talked about earlier. Therefore, it is important that we focus on them. We have done that through concentrating on 400 schools with the most problematic records, with considerable success: there was a 20 per cent. reduction last year in persistent absentees from those schools.

Secondary information

Type: Oral question
Reference: 467 c384-5
Session: 2007-08
Oral question type: Supplementary
Chamber / Committee: House of Commons chamber
Subjects: Finance Local education authorities Truancy Absenteeism Pupils Schools
Contains statistics: Yes
Link: View this Oral question on www.publications.parliament.uk