We’ve been catching up with some truancy sweep figures and they’re entirely predictable. The report we produced 2 years ago could have been written yesterday.
More than a thousand sweeps were carried out during the 2006 autumn term. Around 4 truants were found per sweep; 60% of those stopped were not truants. A sweep generally lasts 3 hours, involving police officers, education officials, Community Support Officers etc etc. The average haul per police officer involved is 1 truant for every one-and-a-half hours of sweep.
It wastes millions and it is having no effect whatsoever on truancy figures. In fact the latest reports show that those figures are rising. Quite why everyone is prepared to tolerate having their Council Tax spent on having police officers prop up the walls in draughty shopping centres for hours at a time is beyond us, but it seems that the current truancy sweep policy is immune to logic.
If we’re not going to get rid of sweeps, then maybe we should extend them? The Guardian today says that:
The total cost of workplace absence last year was £13bn. Employers said they attributed around 12% of short-term absences to staff “pulling a sickie”, which meant 21m days were lost at a cost of £1.6bn.
If the government were to extend the truancy sweep powers to allow the police to question anyone seen out and about during working hours, we feel sure that the public would understand. After all, £1.6bn is a lot of money. If people aren’t bunking off work then, like the 60% of children who are not truanting when they are stopped and questioned, they have nothing to fear. Can’t see any problem really…
The ARCH Blog 
It is impossible not to be infuriated, I completely agree! What on earth can be done?
It’s hard to see what more can be done. There’s no logic to sweeps at all. Quite apart from the direct cost, we’re aware of people who have had to take time off work to accompany teenagers to really basic, 2-minute appointments (things like having an orthodontic brace tightened) simply because their child is afraid of being challenged by a truancy sweep.
We realise that the general public don’t seem to care at all about the effect sweeps have on the majority of children who are not truanting, but one would think that the economic argument, and the waste of police time, would at least get through. We were actually told by the DfES (in a very ill-tempered meeting following publication of our report) that there is a large element of ‘presentation’ to truancy sweeps!
Do the MSM need to be told all over again?
[…] past, we’ve certainly mentioned the total waste of time and money over the past few years on truancy sweeps. As truancy figures continue to climb,new DfES guidance on sweeps contains the following: Truancy […]
Amateurs Porns…
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