Nearly 900 parents were fined or prosecuted for taking their child on holiday during term time as schools get tough on absence.
Parents in Wales were fined hundreds of thousands of pounds for not sending their children to school in Wales last academic year. Below we have compiled a list of fines and prosecutions issued by each of the 22 councils in Wales.
More than 4,000 fines, totalling more than £278,000, were handed to parents and carers for their child’s unauthorised absence in the school year to July 2025 and there were 835 prosecutions, data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act shows. More than 900 of those fines or prosecutions were for confirmed cases of children being taken on unauthorised holidays during term time.
The figures from councils, obtained by WalesOnline, come as latest Welsh Government data shows more than half of secondary-aged children eligible for free school meals were persistently absent from school in the 2024-25 academic year despite efforts to get them back. Attendance has improved slightly in the last year for secondary schools but has remained almost the same for all schools overall this term compared to last year and is still below pre-pandemic levels despite fines being re-introduced two years ago. For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here.
The Welsh Government and local education authorities say it is important children go to school. A national taskforce has been set up to improve attendance. Research shows academic attainment is linked to school attendance and better future life chances, income, and health.
While some councils in Wales issue fines for non-attendance, others don’t. Some schools say fines don’t work and it is better to work with parents using a carrot rather than a stick.
Measures to encourage children into school include universal free school meals for all primary-aged children in Wales. Some schools have also offered incentives with activities, treats, and permission to study certain subjects such as E-sports if children reach a certain level of attendance. There has also been extra Welsh Government funding for family engagement officers.
Fixed penalty notice (FPN) fines for non-attendance are £60 rising to £120 if that’s not paid within 28 days. Parents can be prosecuted if they do not pay those fines or if there is a recurring pattern of their children being off lessons.
WalesOnline asked all 22 councils in Wales how many FPNs they had issued parents for not sending their children to school in the 2024-25 academic year and how many cases had resulted in prosecutions. Of the 20 that responded only two councils said they issued no fines or legal action.
Fixed penalty fines and legal cases issued by the other 20 were for a variety of general absence and term-time holidays.
Not all the prosecutions have concluded so data for that is incomplete but prosecutions that have concluded resulted in further fines and costs for parents.
Publishing the latest school absence figures at the end of September the Welsh Government said: “Raising school attendance is a key commitment. We are working with schools, local authorities, and other partners on initiatives to improve engagement, building on the good practice already happening in schools, and continue our attendance focused work via learner focus groups.
“Last year additional funding was announced to help support attendance and re-engagement with school. A further £7m in funding has been made available for this financial year including £2m for schools to provide their learners with additional enrichment opportunities and an extra £3m for family engagement officers (FEOs). FEOs work directly with schools and families to address attendance barrier and provide targeted support to identify underlying causes of absence and help families access appropriate services and resources.”
The fines and prosecutions issued to parents by council area in the school year 2024-25
Anglesey
No FPNs were issued.
Three prosecutions resulting in three guilty convictions and one (unspecified) fine and with 10 community orders outstanding.
Because the local authority did not issue FPNs it did not receive any money for fines paid for non-attendance at school. Court-imposed fines are paid to the government and specifically into the consolidated fund, the central account of the UK Treasury. This means none went to the council.
Flintshire
There were 80 FPNs issued and 23 prosecutions.
The following fines were imposed for irregular school attendance:
- 8x £1,024
- 4x £716
- 2x £408
- 1x £352
- 4x £816
The fines imposed by the courts are collected by them and the the authority said it did not receive any income from this.
There was also one conditional discharge while one prosecution is on hold due to significant improvement in attendance. Another 57 prosecutions remain outstanding.
Swansea
Overall 146 FPNs were issued while there were no prosecutions and none outstanding.
Swansea council received £2,820 in fines paid for non-attendance at school in the academic year 2024-25. The money received from the fines returned to central education funding, the council said.
Reasons for fines for none attendance were:
- Unauthorised family holiday – 9
- Other unauthorised absence – 119
- Combination of unauthorised absences and unauthorised school holidays – 8
- Combination of unauthorised absences and instances of student being late after register – 10
Cardiff
The year saw 758 FPNs issued with 178 subsequently withdrawn.
There were 88 prosecutions with 75 pending. As a result:
- 13 parents were fined £40
- Two parents were fined £60
- Two parents were fined £80
- One parent was fined £110
- One parent was fined £115
- One parent was fined £180
- 60 parents were fined £220
- Six parents were fined £440
- Two parents received a conditional discharge
Reasons for school attendance fines were:
- 326 for 10-plus absences and further absences
- 432 unauthorised holidays
Cardiff said it received £25,800 in fines from families for their child not attending school. The money was used to administer the scheme.
Merthyr Tydfil
In total there were 476 FPNs and fines along with 64 prosecutions of which 58 saw a guilty outcome while there was one not guilty outcome and five were pending.
Reasons for families fined/prosecuted for non-attendance:
- Term-time holidays – 311
- General unauthorised absence – 157
- Lateness – 8
The council received £22,080 in fines and the money was used for administration costs and overall running of the service.
Caerphilly
A total of 163 FPNs were issued and there were 42 prosecutions comprising 21 as a next step from an FPN and 21 direct prosecutions. In total 26 prosecutions were closed and 16 are still open.
“All prosecutions and FPNs are issued on persistent unauthorised absence. We have not issued fines for holidays,” a council spokesman said.
FPNs totalling £5,340 were collected. The council said: “We are currently in the early stages of considering their use to purchase an FPN processing software package.”
Blaenau Gwent
Overall 250 FPNs were issued and there were 119 prosecutions including 94 unpaid FPNs.
Reasons for FPNs and prosecutions:
- Truancy – 112 (fines)
- Holidays – 138 (fines)
- Truancy – 25 (prosecutions)
The council received £9,780 income from fines and £28,268 from unpaid FPNs that proceeded to prosecution. This includes court costs awarded to the local authority. All income received goes into the local authority to cover the administrative costs and officer time
Torfaen
There were 459 FPNs issued and 28 prosecutions of which 21 were successful and seven were withdrawn.
The council fines and prosecutes under two categories – unauthorised leave of absence and unauthorised absence from school.
The council received £16,380 in fines for the financial year within the school year. A spokesman said: “This money was not specifically allocated. It’s simply income to the authority’s budget – so it helps (in a small way) to fund all costs incurred.”
Gwynedd
No FPNs were issued but there were 20 prosecutions which all resulted in guilty findings. There was one conditional discharge while there were 17 fines from prosecutions and one community order and one community order plus fine. One prosecution remains outstanding. All prosecutions were in relation to “poor school attendance”.
“Because the LA did not issue FPNs the LA did not receive any money for fines paid for non-attendance at school. Court-imposed fines are paid to the government, specifically into the Consolidated Fund, the central account of the UK Treasury,” the council said.
Carmarthenshire
There were no FPNs, prosecutions, or fines.
POWYS
There were no FPNs, prosecutions, or fines.
Conwy
A total of 100 FPNs were issued. There were three prosecutions which resulted in guilty findings and there is one further outstanding.A ll fines and prosecutions were in relation to poor school attendance.
The council said: “£1,500 raised by fines. This amount is considerably less than the costs incurred in screening, processing, issuing, and monitoring the FPNW/FPNs in Conwy during this period.”
Monmouthshire
No FPNs were issued but there were four prosecutions.
The council received no money as there were no fixed penalty fines. The council did not specify why the children were absent and listed all only as “unauthorised absence”.
Pembrokeshire
The council issued 207 FPNs.
The council said that in order not to identify the children/young people or families involved it was unable to provide a breakdown of the numbers of results of the prosecutions for non-attendance in 2024-25 but said seven prosecutions from that year remain outstanding.
Pembrokeshire council said it could not give the exact reasons for unautorised absences other than that they are considered as any absence that meet the key criteria to receive a FPN.
Overall £15,178.49 was received in fines from families for their child’s non-attendance at school in 2024-25. But the council said that owing to the timings of income collection this income does not directly reflect the number of fines and prosecutions in the academic year 2024-25.
“The monies received from fines for non-attendance during the 2024-25 academic year were used to offset the costs associated with pursuing cases through the court process, including administrative and processing expenses,” the council said.
Neath Port Talbot
In total 117 school attendance fines and FPNs were issued.
There were 17 prosecutions resulting in 12 fines and three “other” outcomes. Five prosecutions are still outstanding. “All prosecutions are for general school absences,” according to the council.
The council received £4,140 in money from fines but did not respond to questions about what this money was then used for.
Rhondda Cynon Taf
A total of 310 school attendance fines/penalty notices were issued.
There were 138 prosecutions, all of which the council said were successful, and 85 of these related to fixed penalty notices and the remainder to open education welfare cases. Nine are outstanding.
Of the 85 successful prosecutions five were for holidays in term time taken by secondary school children. The rest were all listed as “unauthorised absence”.
RCT received £21,360 in fines paid for non-attendance at school in the academic year 2024-25. The council said that money ” is used to support the costs of the administrative process surrounding fixed penalty notices which costs above and beyond this amount per financial year” .
Vale of Glamorgan
Overall there were 148 FPNs issued.Four non-FPN-related prosecutions resulting in the follwing fines and court charges:All 152 fines and prosecutions were listed as “poor school attendance”. £2,580 the council received in FPN fines was used to fund FPN processing
- £180 fine, £72 surcharge, £150 costs
- £120 fine, £32 surcharge, £150 costs
- £40 fine, £16 surcharge, £75 costs
- £1,760 fine, £704 surcharge, £150 costs
Newport
The council issued 608 FPNs and there were 235 prosecutions for non-payment of FPNs and 77 prosecutions for non-attendance. There were 305 unauthorised holiday FPNs and 303 non-attendance FPNs plus 77 straight prosecutions.
“£35,345 was paid in fines to the council. This money was used for the implementation of a FPN portal and a contribution to administrative costs,” the council said.
Ceredigion
Fewer than three FPNs were issued and there were fewer than three prosecutions with the reasons listed only as “unauthorised absences”.
The council received £120 in fines which went into the local authority’s budget.
Denbighshire
A total of 70 FPNs were issued.
There were 17 prosecutions and all were either proved guilty in absence or a guilty plea was entered. One educational supervision order was granted and 16 people were fined by magistrates.
All 70 FPNs issued related to “poor attendance” and not holidays.
Only 25 fines were paid – 20 at £60 and five at £120.
Bridgend
The council handed out 152 FPNs while there were two prosecutions with one resulting in a fine and the other case still ongoing.
Reasons for fines and prosecutions were given as 128 cases of poor attendance, one case of persistent lateness, and 23 unauthorised holidays.
Income received from fines in 2024-2025 was £780. The council said the money was used to support the work of the education welfare service.
Wrexham
There were 58 FPNs along with 28 prosecutions. Two of these prosecutions have only just been heard and resulted in a probation report.
Reasons for fines and prosecutions all given as poor attendance. The authority received £420 in non-attendance fines. It did not confirm what that money was used for.
Average school attendance across Wales for September-October 2025
- All-Wales average of 93.4% attendace for primary schools and 90.6% for secondaries but lower for some areas and groups.
- Total average attendance all pupils aged upto 15 was 91.9% which was unchanged compared with the same period in the 2024-25 academic year.
- Pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM) had average attendance of 86.6%, down from 86.8% over the same period in the 2024-5 academic year. For pupils not eligible for FSM the average attendance is 93.5%, which is unchanged compared with the same period last year.
- Average attendance for boys was 92%, which was up from 91.9% over the same period in the 2024-25 academic year. For girls average attendance is 91.8%, which is unchanged compared with the same period last year.
- Average attendance falls as pupils get older. The average attendance for this academic year to date is lowest among pupils in year 11 (88.3%) and highest amongst pupils in year seven (93.9%). Attendance among year 11 pupils is 0.2 percentage points higher than it was in the same period in the 2024-25 academic year.
- The most common reason for absence in this academic year to date is illness which accounts for 3.3% of sessions. This was also the most common reason in the same period of the 2024-25 academic year.
Secondary school absence
Attendance rates have improved with overall absence falling from 12% to 10.9% in the 2024-25 school year, Welsh Government figures published in the autumn show. The rate of secondary pupils persistently absent (missing 10 or more half-day school sessions) fell from 37.1% to 33% in the same period. But this still means more than one in 10 (10.9%) half-day school sessions were missed on average.
Pupils in key exam years and those eligible for free school meals and from less-well-off backgrounds are even less likely to be in lessons and some schools and areas have far lower rates of attendance than others. There is a mixed picture across Wales.
On average secondary school-aged pupils eligible for free school meals missed 18.8% of half-day sessions in 2024-25 while their better-off peers missed 8.9% of half-day sessions. Both figures have decreased since 2023-24 from 20.1% and 9.8% respectively.
A total of 58% of secondary school-aged pupils eligible for free school meals were persistently absent in 2024-25 compared to 61.4% in 2023-24. In 2024-25 some 26.8% of secondary pupils not eligible for free school meals were persistently absent compared to 30.9% in 2023-24. This is a decrease from 2023-24 for both groups of pupils but the figures remain high.
Average school attendance in 2024-25 school year compared with the last pre-Covid pandemic year (2018-19)
- The overal average for 2024-25 was 90.9% while in 2018-19 this stood at 94.3%.
- In 2024-25 among pupils eligible for free school meals attendance was 85.2%, which was a fall from the 2018-19 figure of 91.2%.
- Average attendance in 2024-25 was lowest among pupils in year 11 at 86.4% and highest among pupils in years three and four at 92.9%. Absence among year 11 pupils is 6.8 percentage points lower than it was in 2018-19. Primary school age groups fell by 2.0 to 2.3 percentage points over the same period.
- Illness accounted for 3.8% of all school sessions in 2024-25, which was up from 3% in 2018-19.
