New research has revealed vast differences in the number of truancy fines handed out by local authorities in England and Wales.
The most aggressive council, Essex County Council, imposed 35,605 fines for unauthorised school absences – which cost parents up to £160 – between 2022 and 2024, according to Confused.com.
Meanwhile, the most relaxed council, Denbighshire County Council, imposed just four.
In fact, far fewer fines were imposed across Wales (2,762) than England (873,062). That equates to a fine for every 65 people in England, compared with every 1,134 people in Wales.
Here you can see the 10 councils that handed out the most and fewest fines…
The insurance site found nearly two in five parents whose child has had an unauthorised absence admitted to taking them on holiday, saving an average of £567 on travel costs – rising to more than £1,000 for 16% of them.
Some 27% of parents have received a fine for doing so.
“I would do it again because the hike in prices for term-time versus non-term-time holidays is crazy,” said Joanne, from Cambridge, who took her two daughters, aged eight and 12, out of school for the last three days of term in July 2024.
She was fined £80 for allowing them to travel with their grandfather to visit their father at his home in Singapore, a trip that lasted 15 days in total.
“They don’t see him throughout the year, so I think that’s valuable in itself, and then if you’re going on a holiday to see a different kind of culture, I think there’s education to be had in that,” she said.
Almost half (48%) of those surveyed who were fined said they would do it again.
‘Severe consequences’
“With prices often soaring outside of term time, some parents are weighing up the potential cost of a fine against the savings they can make by travelling off-peak,” Alvaro Iturmendi, travel insurance expert at Confused.com, said.
“But if this is something that is happening repeatedly, then councils could take legal…
