---

Truancy: Prosecutions

Answer

Information from the Ministry of Justice court proceedings database on the number of parents proceeded against at magistrates courts for offences relating to failing to secure their child's regular school attendance in the Sussex police force area and England, for the years 2001 to 2007 can be viewed in the following table. Prior to 2001 these offences cannot be separately identified.

Number of defendants proceeded against at magistrates courts for offences relating to 'failing to attend school¹ in Sussex police force area (pfa), and England, 2001-07²,³
	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
Sussex (pfa)	13	6	17	10	9	5	13
England	1,961	3,163	3,849	4,442	4,648	5,999	7,745
¹ Includes the following:
(i) Failure to secure regular attendance at school. (Education Act 1996 S.444 (1)(8)).
(ii) Parent knows that their child is failing to attend school regularly and fails without reasonable justification to cause him or her to attend school. (Education Act 1996 S.444(8)(1a)(8a) added by Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 S.72).
² The statistics relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offences for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences the principal offence is the offence, for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe.
³ Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.
Source:
Justice Statistics Analytical Services - Ministry of Justice. [Ref: IOS 593-09]

Court proceedings data for 2008 are planned for publication on 28 January 2010.These data are on the principal offence basis. The figures given in the table on court proceedings relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offence for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences, the offence selected is the one for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe.These data are a further breakdown of that published in the Criminal Statistics, Supplementary Volumes for England and Wales for the years 2001 to 2007.Our commitment as set out in the Children's Plan is to reduce the level of persistent absence so that by 2011 no local authority will have more than five per cent of its secondary pupils as persistent absentees. Although the number of prosecutions in Sussex was the same in 2007 as in 2001, there has been an increase of 5,784 prosecutions in England over the same period, which is nearly four times as many than in 2001. This could be attributed to local authorities making more use of their powers to improve attendance in school. Recent years have seen increased use of parental responsibility measures such as parenting orders and parenting contracts as well as prosecutions.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

505 c306-7W; 308463

Session

2009-10

Subjects

Prosecutions Truancy

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

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