Oral question asked in the House of Lords, by Baroness Howe of Idlicote (Crossbench). It was answered on Tuesday, 6 April 2010.

Schools: Truancy

Question: My Lords, in drawing on my experience of some 20 years as chairman of a juvenile court, does the Minister agree that early truancy is often a sign of other serious child or family behavioural problems? Given that—I refer specifically to truancy—can the Minister give your Lordships the national truancy figures for each of the past five years? If, as I suspect, these are not available, can she please ask that any future Government will make them available so that this House can do its job of scrutiny in keeping government policies and their effectiveness under review?

Answer: I understand the noble Baroness’s frustration in wanting to look specifically at truancy. The issue here is: does it matter whether a parent, who has absolute responsibility for making sure that their child is in school, knows that their child is bunking off? We have to make sure that all unauthorised absence, whether it is in the knowledge of the parent or not, is tackled. We need to make sure that children are in school—that is why we have to focus on getting attendance up—and we need parents to play their role in that. That is why we have worked relentlessly throughout the system to get parents to take their responsibility to get children in school.

Secondary information