 Help is available to parents who need support over a truant child |
A council has said a government scheme to punish parents of truants is reducing the number of children skipping school. More than 200 fixed penalty notices have been issued since Liverpool City Council launched the scheme last June.
Fines up to �100 can be handed out by education welfare officers, head teachers and police to parents who fail to send children to school regularly.
Fines are only issued if parents do not take action following a warning letter.
Help is available to parents who need support, such as in-school counselling, parent support sessions and specialist mentoring.
The city council's executive director of children's services, Colin Hilton, said: "Every single day counts during a child's education and all the evidence we have is that pupils who truant are more likely to leave school without qualifications and not achieve their full potential.
"The fixed penalty notices are proving to be a valuable deterrent - in nearly a third of cases where we sent out a warning letter, there was an improvement in attendance and no further action was required.
He added that attendance rates were rising, more parents were asking for help in making sure their children attended lessons, but more work still needed to be done.
If the parent refuses to pay, they face the possibility of a court fining them up to �2,500, forcing them to attend parenting classes, or imposing a community sentence.
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We will continue to use all the powers at our disposal to improve attendance
