Truancy rates have risen this year - as poor attendance continues to hinder the worst-performing local authorities.

The annual school performance data shows that the average rate of unauthorised absences for schools in England has risen from 1% to 1.1%.

But the increase has been disproportionately concentrated in the inner-city areas at the lower end of the performance tables.

Click here for a table of absence rates

In terms of absenteeism, all of the lowest-performing 10 local authorities have worse figures than the bottom-ranked authorities last year.

Knowsley has the highest rate of unauthorised absence this year with 3.4%, compared with last year's 3.2%.

This year's second worst figure, 3.3% in Hackney, compares with 2.2% in the same borough last year.

Truancy targets

The government has made the reduction of truancy an important target in its school improvement campaign.

And in 1998 it set a target of cutting truancy by a third by September 2002.

But the Department for Education says that this target applies specifically to truancy - and not to these figures for unauthorised absences, which can also include days when parents have taken children on holiday.

Many of the lowest ranked authorities in the absenteeism tables are the same authorities that are at the lowest end of the GCSE results table.

Knowsley, as well as coming last in terms of attendance also comes last in GCSE scores.

But there are also authorities that are much worse in terms of attendance than their exam results position - such as Lewisham, Richmond and Westminster, which all are in the worst 10 authorities for truancy.

Leaving without qualifications

While the exam results show an overall improvement, the breakdown of local authority performance also reveals a residual problem in pupils leaving without any GCSEs.

The average number of pupils without any GCSEs has fallen from 5.6% to 5.5% - but at the bottom end of the table there are authorities where the problem is getting worse.

In Manchester, the proportion without any GCSEs has risen from 7.3% last year to 13.6% this year.

In Islington, the proportion without GCSEs has risen from 8.3% to 11.4%.

But higher up the table there are signs of improvement and a cutting down on the number of youngsters leaving school without any qualifications.

Kensington and Chelsea, one of the most improved authorities, cut the numbers without GCSEs from 10.8% last year to 3.8%. And Camden has reduced its pupils leaving without GCSEs from 5.9% to 4.1%.

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The table below shows the average rates of half days of unauthorised absence for local education authorities' schools.

Click the name of any LEA to go to its pages in the main tables.

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