Parents across England and Wales have been fined £24M in total for failing to send their children to school during the past three years. Some councils have issued penalties five times higher than average. However, this does not seem to be effective as parents now actively prepare so as to be able to afford the fine.
Between them, 155 authorities in the UK issued estimated 400,000 penalties over three years. An average of 12 penalties were issued per 1,000 children, either for truancy or for parents taking children on holiday whilst term time is still occuring.
Starting from 2019, summer holidays are going to be cut from six to five weeks and the introduction of a two week autumn half term instead.
These changes would give island parents the chance to take a family break outside traditional holiday dates.
This does not seem like a relatively new implementation to attempt to stop parents from taking their children on vacation during term-times, but instead has taught the parents to either find a loophole or to have decided how to factor in the fine and just pay it off after returning from the vacation.
An example of this is; When Dave Brain's father passed away, he decided to use money left to him to pay for a family holiday to Florida. Going on vacation during the holidays would have cost him £3,500 more than during the term time. As they returned to the UK they received the fine of £60 for one of their children. Mr.Brain stated, "And I would do it again in an instant if the same opportunity arose".
This shows that the fines are not being taken seriously or being ignored all together therefore not having the desired effect. They may either need to take a more serious approach or just allow persons to do as they please with their children. However, this just may be based on the area.
For example; One authority watching the Platt case closely was Nottingham City Council, where the amount of fines issued dropped from 1,129 in 2014 to 2015 to just 282 in 2016 to 2017. Parents in Nottinghamshire faced an increase in the number of fines issued in England - over ten times as much from 370 in 2014 to 2015 to 3,771 in 2016 to 2017. Based on past statistics, in comparison to some authorities, they have issued a smaller number of fines.
However, in Essex, the second largest education authority area in the country (after Kent), parents saw the number of penalties issued increase from 909 in 2014 to 2015 to 3,165 in 2016 to 2017 for unauthorised term time holidays. At the other end of the spectrum in Southend Borough Council, the number of penalties issued dropped 98% from 52 in 2014 to 2015 to just 1 in 2016 to 17.
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