“Truancy” is one of several reasons why a child may be absent from school without authorisation. My Department has spent the following on measures aimed solely at reducing absence from schools:
£11.25 million to help 530 secondary schools which had higher than average rates of unauthorised absence to purchase electronic registration systems;
£2.0 million on the National Strategies’ work to provide support to local authorities on their attendance strategies;
£0.3 million on eight advisers seconded from local authorities to the Department to work with 60 local authorities with high levels of unauthorised absence;
£48,000 on absence data collections (in addition to school census collections);
£0.1 million for publicity and promotion materials; and
£0.2 million on events for local authorities to share effective practice on attendance management.
In addition to these specific measures my Department has funded other initiatives such as the Behaviour Improvement Programme which have had, as part of their overall objectives, the reduction of absence and truancy.