To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how much has been spent on centrally funded projects and initiatives to reduce truancy in schools by his Department since 1997. [119435]
The Department has directly funded publicity materials aimed at parents, a number of practitioner conferences and the commissioning of research into truancy. Spending in these areas totals approximately £700,000. In addition it has supported a wide range of work at local level by local education authorities and schools to improve both behaviour and attendance through the Standards Fund. Local education authorities have made decisions about local priorities, and much of the funding has been delegated to schools.
Since September 2002, the Department has also allocated £50 million of Behaviour Improvement Programme funding to 34 local education authorities to support work with targeted groups of schools in improving pupils' behaviour. One strand of this programme is focused on improving attendance. From April 2003, under the national Behaviour and Attendance strategy, initial payments totalling around £14 million have been made to all local education authorities in support of the strategy objective of providing training and support to every secondary school in England.
Because the aim of all these measures is to both improve behaviour and increase attendance—and action in respect of one will often have an impact on the other—it is not possible to identify separately the level of expenditure allocated to tackling truancy.