Applying School Absence Rules To Tory Councillors

What would happen if you applied school absence rules to Tory Councillors in Lancashire?

In schools in the UK, less than 95% attendance is considered as ‘bad’ and less than 90% attendance is considered ‘persistent absence’.

In Lancashire County Council, out of the 46 Tory Councillors running the show, over a quarter would be classed as having ‘persistent absence’.

Sadly LCC does not apply the same expectations to adult Councillors as they do to children and parents.

63% of Tory Councillors attendance would be classed as ‘persistent absence’, or ‘bad’, while only 3 Councillors (6.5% of the total) had full attendance. This leaves just over a third (36.9%) having ‘good’, or ‘full’ attendance.

Unauthorised Absences and Penalty Notices

If children miss more than 10 ‘sessions’ (half-days) due to ‘unauthorised absences’, out of the minimum of 380 sessions in the academic year, a local authority must consider issuing a penalty notice to the parents, which is a financial fine. This equates to children missing 2.63% of sessions in the school year.

In the County Council, it’s customary to apologise if absent from a meeting a Councillor is expected at. Despite this, only 66% of Tory absences were apologised for.

If we class non-apologies as ‘unauthorised absences’, LCC would have to consider issuing a penalty notice to the parents of over half (54%) of Tory Councillors.

Commentary

This begs a few questions:

1. Where are our Tory Councillors?
2. Should LCC apply the same expectations and measures to address absenteeism on elected representatives as they do on children and parents?
3. Why, when Councillors can attend virtually rather than in their physical form, is virtual attendance so low?
4. Is this why LCC are in so much debt (over £1 billion)
5. Will the Tory Councillors parents address their children’s absenteeism if issued with a penalty notice?