SCHOOLS in Bournemouth and Poole have backed away from handing out fines to parents if their children miss school, figures from the Department for Education suggest.

However schools in Dorset appear to have clamped down on unauthorised absence.

As revealed earlier this week, the number of persistently absent students is up across the county, nearly 5,000 were persistently absent from secondary schools last year, each missing at least 19 days of teaching.

The numbers, for the 2016/17 academic year, show that 174 penalty notices were handed out to parents in Bournemouth, 41 per cent fewer than in the previous year.

However, the number of persistently absent children in the borough – those missing at least 10 per cent of their allocated teaching time – went up by 13 per cent.

In Poole parents received 205 penalty notices for the 2016/17 academic year, 34 per cent down on the previous year.

However in Poole the number of persistently absent children dropped by five per cent from the previous year.

Schools in the Dorset County Council area more than double the number of fines from the previous year in 2016/17 – an increase of 160 per cent to 704 penalty notices.

The number of persistently absent children there had only increased by four per cent on the previous year.

More than 80 per cent of fines were issued when children were taken on unauthorised holidays during term time.

Bournemouth council made £7,020 through 114 fines paid by parents, Borough of Poole made £10,920 through 174 fines paid and Dorset County Council raised £26,640 through 442 fines paid.

All three authorities have a lower rate of fines than the national average – nine per 1,000 pupils in Bournemouth, 12 per 1,000 in Poole and 15 per 1,000 in Dorset, compared with the average of 22 per 1,000 nationally.

Local authorities impose their own rules on when parents can be given penalty notices over their children's absence from school.

Fines are £60 if paid within 21 days, and £120 within 28 days.

Councils can prosecute parents if penalty notices remain unpaid after 28 days.

Last year, 34 cases were taken to court in Bournemouth, three in Poole and eight in Dorset for non-payment.

Parents can receive a fine of up to £2,500, a community order or a jail sentence of up to three months if prosecuted.

Across England, 149,321 fines were issued to parents in 2016/17, a five per cent drop on the previous year, and the first decrease since data started being collected in 2009/10.

Collectively, local authorities raised more than £6.4 million in fines across the academic year.

In a high-profile case in April last year Isle of Wight father Jon Platt lost an appeal in the Supreme Court against his £120 fine for taking his daughter on an unauthorised trip to Disney World Florida during term time. The Department for Education suggested the drop in fines nationally could have been caused by local authorities waiting to see the outcome of the case.

Darren Northcott, the national official for education at the teachers' union NASUWT, said the defence provided by the Department for Education showed that the structure was in place to encourage parents to get their children into school.

He said: "We have always been clear: absences during term time should only occur in very exceptional circumstances, such as illness and family emergencies.

"Every day in school counts, and every lesson counts. Fines are an absolute last resort, and only given if families have had the support they need to try and improve their absence rates."

Mr Northcott added that he could sympathise with parents taking children out of school for term-time holidays, and that the increase of package holiday prices during school holidays should be investigated.