THE number of penalty notices issued nationally has soared from 149,300 in 2016/17 to 260,877 in 2017/18, according to data from the Department for Education.

The most common reason was unauthorised family holiday absence. The rise in fines comes after father Jon Platt lost a case at the Supreme Court in April 2017.

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He initially won a high-profile High Court case in 2016 over taking his daughter out of school for a holiday to Disney World, Florida, without permission.

Previous figures suggest that after this ruling, many parents decided to take term-time breaks believing it was unlikely they would face action for doing so.

But the case was later referred to the Supreme Court, where Mr Platt lost. The latest increase in the number of fines issued appears to be due to councils getting clarity from the Supreme Court judgment.

The department for education said it contacted a small sample of local authorities with large changes about the increase in 2017/18.

It said: “All six that responded cited that the Supreme Court judgment in this case had an effect on the number of penalty notices issued in 2017/18, either as a result of returning to pre-court case levels following a slowdown or from a change in behaviour as a result of the ruling.”

A fixed penalty notice for persistent unauthorised absence is £60 per parent and per child if paid within 21 days. This rises to £120 if paid after this but before 28 days. If the notice remains unpaid, the local authority may consider legal action. The overall absence rate across state-funded primary, secondary and special schools increased from 4.7 per cent in 2016/17 to 4.8 per cent in 2017/18. In Bolton that figure stood at 5 per cent up from 4.7 per cent.

Unauthorised absences stood at 1.4 per cent up by 0.2 per cent.

The unauthorised absence rate in all schools is now at its highest since records began.