A change to the way Pembrokeshire County Council issues fines for term time absences looks likely not to go ahead, following a report by the council’s director for children and schools to today's (Monday's) cabinet.

Last year the authority went out to consultation to change the period used to calculate absence, from the whole academic year to a rolling 12 week period.

This would have meant that more families would have been fined for unauthorised absence.

Of those that responded to the consultation 69% stated that they disagreed or strongly disagreed with the proposed changes. The director said an overwhelming majority of those respondents were expressing opposition to penalty notices per se rather than the changes.

However the director has now recommended that the 12-week rolling time period is not instigated.

“While the proposal was well intentioned, as it sought to deal with a potential issue where absence at the beginning of the academic year could be viewed more harshly than absence later in the year, this issue is best dealt with by considering the facts of each individual case,” reads the director’s report.

“The balance of opinion in the consultation was against the proposal, and a secondary factor against the proposal is that it would be burdensome for schools to implement, as it would require constant weekly review of large numbers of individual pupil records to determine whether the threshold is met.”

The two other changes that were consulted on are recommended to proceed, these change the wording of the council’s code of conduct so that it refers to all types of unauthorised absence and that unauthorised holidays in term time and persistent late absence are not singled out.

Cabinet is recommended to approve the director’s proposals and to receive a report on the operation of the code of conduct in 12 months’ time.