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Truancy

Answer

I have been asked to reply.Under Section 16 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (as amended), police officers may, if authorised to do so by a chief police officer, take excluded pupils who are in a public place during normal school hours and children who they believe are out of school without lawful authority to a designated place established by the local authority or to the school. This power is often used during a "School Attendance and Exclusions Sweep””.This Department and the Home Department have issued joint guidance to local authorities and police services on the use of the power to remove pupils from public places and the organisation of exercises using it called "School Attendance and Exclusions Sweeps: Effective Practice and Advice" which explains the law and gives examples of practice that is in use.Under Section 444A of the Education Act 1996 (as amended) police officers may issue fixed penalty notices to parents who fail to secure their child's regular attendance, if they have been authorised to do so by the local code of practice on the use of penalty notices.Police community support officers may also use the powers to remove pupils from a public place and to issue fixed penalty notices, if they have been designated to do so under the Police Reform Act 2002 by the .chief officer of the force concerned.The Department has not collected data on the number of "school attendance and exclusions sweeps" conducted by local authorities since autumn 2006, when we ceased co-ordinating national sweeps-allowing authorities to run sweeps according to local need. I have put the data we collected as part of the rationally co-ordinated exercises in the Library of the House.Analyses of national data show that there is a correlation between absence from school and pupils' levels of achievement, with average performance of pupils in schools with lower levels of absence better than pupils in schools with higher levels of absence. Data for 2006-07 showed that in secondary schools with an average of 12 days absence per pupil 36 per cent. of pupils or more obtained five of more GCSEs at grade A* to C including English and maths compared with 91 per cent. of pupils in secondary schools with an average of less than six days absence per pupil In primary schools with an average of more than 12 days absence per pupil 52 per cent. of 11-year-olds achieved level 4 or above in English and mathematics compared with 84 per cent. of pupils in schools where the average absence was less than six days per pupil.

Number of school attendance and exclusion sweeps organised by local authorities as part of the nationally co-ordinated exercises
	Number of Sweeps
Local Authority	Spring 2003	2003-4 school year	2004-5 school year	2005-6 school year	Autumn 2006
Barking and Dagenham	3	11	6	6	3
Barnet	8	0	13	5	2
Barnsley	24	52	85	37	18
Bath and NE Somerset	7	14	7	0	0
Bedfordshire	14	28	42	38	16
Bexley	1	7	29	12	4
Birmingham	10	58	22	30	20
Blackburn	14	10	16	20	7
Blackpool	5	6	9	9	4
Bolton	2	3	4	1	2
Bournemouth	3	4	8	10	7
Bracknell Forest	12	13	9	11	8
Bradford	7	15	14	16	0
Brent	9	0	3	8	3
Brighton and Hove	2	3	2	4	6
Bristol City	38	115	5	6	5
Bromley	4	8	18	28	13
Buckinghamshire	0	6	8	12	10
Bury	10	112	70	46	10
Calderdale	5	20	20	12	4
Cambridgeshire	0	.20	29	21	5
Camden	3	5	20	17	8
Cheshire	1	5	23	17	10
City of Derby	32	94	74	62	0
City of Nottingham	25	38	32	33	8
City of Westminster	5	8	7	8	3
Cornwall	2	6	9	9	2
Corporation of London	0	3	4	4	0
Coventry	0	27	33	24	0
Croydon	4	4	10	9	2
Cumbria	0	4	8	4	2
Darlington	2	3	4	5	1
Derbyshire	4	29	25	26	0
Devon	0	5	11	12	5
Doncaster	4	11	24	0	11
Dorset	3	0	5	4	11
Dudley	0	18	7	9	4
Durham	18	42	39	47	21
Ealing	6	15	21	22	10
East Riding	4	10	21	0	0
East Sussex NB UG1	3	6	14	25	25
Enfield	5	8	5	2	5
Essex	6	12	26	29	14
Gateshead	11	24	21	20	14
Gloucestershire	6	10	12	16	8
Greenwich	9	10	15	10	5
Hackney	5	6	20	15	18
Halton	8	4	10	12	9
Hammersmith and Fulham	16	18	33	30	14
Hampshire	12	18	8	11	5
Haringey	8	17	16	27	10
Harrow	11	20	19	14	3
Hartlepool	4	9	18	12	9
Havering	3	0	2	6	4
Herefordshire	3	6	2	0	1
Hertfordshire	23	3	17	13	11
Hillingdon	16	29	38	38	17
Hounslow	8	12	18	64	21
Isle of Wight	9	17	8	4	4
Isles of Scilly	0	0	0	0	0
Islington	10	18	25	20	7
Kensington and Chelsea	8	16	7	5	1
Kent	15	37	38	42	20
Kingston upon Hull	14	11	8	0	5
Kingston-upon-Thames	3	6	5	14	4
Kirklees	3	6	3	2	5
Knowsley	0	0	16	9	3
Lambeth	5	9	10	0	0
Lancashire	0	46	30	34	14
Leeds	4	35	44	37	5
Leicester City	2	4	5	8	3
Leicestershire	2	10	14	11	4
Lewisham	9	14	10	9	5
Lincolnshire	8	17	17	13	8
Liverpool	22	94	89	97	36
Luton	0	2	3	12	8
Manchester	6	14	10	19	20
Medway	0	4	3	11	3
Merton	2	9	8	11	5
Middlesbrough	9	21	25	20	10
Milton Keynes	6	18	10	11	2
Newcastle-upon-Tyne	15	41	36	32	8
Newham	0	30	14	10	4
Norfolk	0	2	15	7	0
North East Lincolnshire	5	8	7	4	2
North Lincolnshire	9	48	29	15	15
North Somerset	9	12	18	9	2
North Tyneside	5	15	5	5	0
North Yorkshire	8	8	26	18	5
Northamptonshire	8	5	8	6	9
Northumberland	9	17	24	18	10
Nottinghamshire	8	17	14	17	12
Oldham	4	8	9	7	5
Oxfordshire	21	16	10	6	3
Peterborough	1	5	5	0	0
Plymouth	3	6	3	0	3
Poole	1	6	9	4	0
Portsmouth	1	2	2	2	1
Reading	3	6	6	11	5
Redbridge	3	7	6	3-	3
Redcar and Cleveland	5	6	8	9	8
Richmond-upon-Thames	4	8	6	7	2
Rochdale	0	10	9	7	2
Rotherham	12	18	30	23	14
Rutland	0	1	2	4	2
Salford	0	11	10	7	5
Sandwell	21	78	46	71	27
Sefton	10	66	46	66	30
Sheffield	10	10	10	0	0
Shropshire	4	18	21	18	12
Slough	8	9	6	3	0
Solihull	5	0	26	23	6
Somerset	6	7	8	5	3
South Gloucestershire	5	5	7	7	10
South Tyneside	0	7	8	6	0
Southampton	2	8	20	3	7
Southend	3	3	5	2	0
Southwark	0	0	2	17	11
St. Helens	18	10	9	10	5
Staffordshire	27	55	27	32	22
Stockport	10	30	26	20	20
Stockton-on-Tees	2	5	5	6	0
Stoke-on-Trent	6	8	5	33	0
Suffolk	13	9	15	14	7
Sunderland	5	10	17	19	14
Surrey	9	19	18	14	9
Sutton	6	9	15	17	2
Swindon	4	1	8	10	7
Tameside	2	7	9	24	0
The Wrekin	6	23	20	32	11
Thurrock	5	10	10	3	29
Torbay	4	4	4	4	0
Tower Hamlets	3	12	38	43	30
Trafford	6	5	0	0	0
Wakefield	3	10	6	8	4
Walsall	—	11	12	6	5
Waltham Forest	3	12	12	11	6
Wandsworth	6	7	3	6	2
Warrington	10	19	20	12	3
Warwickshire	0	4	4	4	3
West Berkshire	4	9	8	6	3
West Sussex	1	1	2	2	7
Wigan	:2	4	6	12	16
Wiltshire	5	3	2	4	4
Windsor and Maidenhead	4	10	10	5	0
Wirral	4	13	16	15	7
Wokingham	0	2	1	a	0
Wolverhampton	6	12	11	11	6
York	4	47	22	25	23

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

213093; 478 c336-9W;478 c338-41W

Session

2007-08

Subjects

Truancy

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk