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Education professionals are scornful of the government’s plan to enable schools to fine the parents of truants, reports Mark Hunter.

The problem of truancy simply refuses to go away. Despite £650m spent on anti-truancy measures over the past six years and a recent rash of hard-line initiatives, including police-led truancy sweeps and the threat of fines or imprisonment for the parents of recalcitrant truants, there is little evidence that any fewer children are bunking off school

In fact, according to a Conservative Party analysis of the government’s own figures, the number of children deliberately skipping school has risen by 15 per cent in the past six years. More than a million children played truant last year, claims shadow education secretary Damian Green.

The Department for Education and Skills rejects this analysis as Tory spin on a "complex issue". However, the policy of punishing parents for the behaviour of their truanting offspring remains far from convincing. As highlighted by the research of Kingston upon Thames’s principal education welfare officer Ming Zhang (see page 12), the threat of legal action appears to have little effect on parents’ ability to ensure their child remains in school.

But the government seems determined to increase the use of the criminal law to clamp down on truancy. Nowhere is this determination more apparent than in the Antisocial Behaviour Bill currently going through parliament. This will give unprecedented new powers to head teachers and educational welfare officers to issue fixed penalty notices to the parents of children who truant.

The prospect of head teachers dispensing truancy tickets like educational traffic wardens appears to have horrified

teachers’ unions, education social workers and children’s charities alike.

"It’s unnecessary," says Jacqui Newvell, a former Education Welfare Officer who now heads the NCB’s Pupil Inclusion Unit. "There’s enough legislation in existence at the moment to deal with truancy, we don’t need any more. If you look at the results from the government’s more punitive stance then you have to conclude it’s not working. It doesn’t make sense to introduce even more measures. I would also challenge the view that absolute parental authority is realistic in 2003."

"My concern is that by taking a such quick and easy route rather than going through the procedures that are needed for a prosecution there’s a danger that a proper assessment won’t be carried out."

Children’s charities have also expressed their concern at the proposed policy. "We are very worried by this," says Terri Dowty, acting joint co-ordinator of the Children’s Rights Alliance for England. "For a start there are well-established links between truancy and poverty, so how does it help to fine a family that may already be struggling to make ends meet?

"Fixed penalty notices can only exacerbate the hardship and stress already suffered by the millions of families living in poverty; a £40 fine may represent a week’s expenditure on food for a family on income support."

Dowty points out that any measure that increases a child’s poverty would breach the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child which obliges the government to guarantee children an adequate standard of living and protect their economic rights. She is also concerned that the power to issue spot fines may irrevocably damage teachers’ relationship with parents. "It sends out a message that education is no longer a partnership between the teacher and the family. You don’t fine your partner."

Dowty believes the underlying reasons for truancy are often far more complicated than poorly enforced parental discipline. It is these root causes that the government should be addressing rather than seeking simple solutions through the legal system, she says. "We should be looking at why education is not fulfilling so many children’s needs. What is it about school that’s turning people off? It may be that because of their family’s situation they feel that education is not relevant to them."

The National Association of Social Workers in Education - the organisation for education welfare officers who will be empowered to issue the fines along with head teachers - passed a motion at their recent annual conference opposing the proposals. Teachers’ unions are also against the new powers. The National Union of Teachers claims the policy will "create and atmosphere of conflict", the National Association of Head Teachers is "not persuaded that heads should enforce the criminal law" and the Secondary Heads Association is concerned that the measures will increase heads’ already barely manageable workload.

"Frankly, it’s not the job of a head teacher to be handing out legal notices," says Bob Carstairs, assistant general secretary of the SHA. "Our view is that this is likely to be just more work for the heads, so we would like to see this particular part of the bill changed."

Such a change is still possible. Although the Conservatives did not oppose the antisocial behaviour bill as it passed its second reading in the House of Commons in April, shadow home secretary Oliver Letwin promised to use the committee stages to seek an amendment to remove the provision for spot fines.

"For the first time in British history and, as far as I can discover, with no international precedent, we have the mind-numbing idea that teachers could hand out fixed penalty notices to the parents of children at their school," he told the House. "I cannot imagine how the home secretary imagines that such a provision would be workable and I hope that we can change it in Committee."

But even if the power for teachers to issue spot fines does make it onto the statute books, there is doubt as to whether it will be widely used. "As things stand I can’t see us using it," says Geoff Cooper, head teacher at Weston Road High School in Stafford. "My initial reaction is that it would be an administrative nightmare. For instance, what happens if the family refuses to pay up? Are we going to have to chase up the money?

"Consistency will also be a problem. You will get different schools applying different criteria as to what constitutes persistent truancy. There are bound to be appeals against decisions at some point, so head teachers may find themselves having to go to court to justify their actions."

Above all, Cooper believes that new legal powers to tackle truancy would be completely unnecessary if only the existing ones were properly enforced. Parents of persistent truants already face fines of up to £2,500 or up to three months in prison. In practice, however, magistrates often seem reluctant to enforce such strict penalties. This reluctance can undermine all the efforts of the teachers and education welfare officers, claims Cooper.

"Unfortunately, the magistrates don’t seem to appreciate the amount of work that goes on before the parents arrive in court. We go through an immense amount of work with the [truanting] pupil and their parents before it comes to the point where we have to say we are going nowhere and our only option is to take the parents to court." It is then a little dispiriting to see the parents let off with a conditional discharge, he says.

Of course, it is possible that a fixed penalty notice for truancy could help avoid such disappointments by allowing schools to bypass the courts and impose their fines directly. Alternatively, it may be that, as claimed by the Secondary Heads Association’s deputy general secretary Martin Ward, the proposal for spot fines is simply a "grandstand policy" designed by the government to win headlines.

Certainly the fines have few supporters outside the government. Head teachers and education welfare officers don’t want them, the unions oppose them and children’s charities have condemned them. And without the backing of the professionals charged with implementing it, there is a big question mark over how much difference the new law will make.