Legal News
Parents of Truant Children Could Face Benefit Loss (14 September 2011)
Date: 14/09/2011
Parents of truant children could lose their child benefits under new plans under Government consideration. David Cameron has vowed to crackdown on what he has described as “the hard core minority of families” who deliberately cause trouble in their own neighbourhoods. The Prime Minister has sworn to take swift and harsh action to tackle social problems, including discipline in schools. Mr. Cameron claims that in doing, “old taboos and sensitivities” would be pushed aside. The measure of cutting child benefit for parents whose children fail to attend school may be supported by the Tories but is likely to be opposed by both Liberal Democrats and Labour.
Michael Gove, the Government’s Education Secretary, recently linked a failure in the education system with the recent UK riots, and said that the time had come to review truancy sanctions to aid the "educational underclass". The Government has requested the help of the former head teacher and Government discipline adviser Charlie Taylor to investigate fresh ways in which to resolve problems such as truancy.
Advocates of harsher truancy measures claim that the current system of fining parents whose children miss school for no reason, and potentially jailing parents if they fail to pay the fines does not to work as the majority of parents refuse to pay and the courts hesitate to provide prison sentences.
The specialist child care law department at Duncan Lewis understands how the law affects parents and their children. Their child care law solicitors are able to advise and represent parents and their children in all manner of public law proceedings.