Truancy (Hansard, 14 December 1993)

§ 15. Mr. Pope
To ask the Secretary of State for Education what plans he has to reduce the level of truancy in schools.

§ Mr. Patten
Parents are responsible in law for securing their children's regular attendance at school and local education authorities are responsible for ensuring that they do so. The Department is supporting the work of LEAs and schools in this area under the reducing truancy programme of the grants for education support and training scheme. In 1993–94, projects are being funded in 71 LEAs to a value of £9.6 million.

§ 24. Mr. Cohen
To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will make a statement about his Department's policy on truancy.

§ Mr. Forth
My right hon. Friend expects local education authorities and schools to make maximising attendance one of their key tasks. To help them, the Department is currently supporting projects to a value of some £9.6 million in 71 English local education authorities under the reducing truancy component of the grants for education support and training scheme 1993–94.

§ Mr. Merchant
To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will list for each local education authority(a) the school population, (b) the number of prosecutions for truancy in the latest available year and (c) the average truancy rate for schools, excluding independent schools, in each area.

§ Mr. Robin Squire
The information requested on the school population and average rate of unauthorised absence for each LEA is published in the "National Unauthorised Absence Tables 1992–93", copies of which are available in the Library.
Information on the number of prosecutions for truancy is not collected centrally.