meanmistermustard said
Take a kid out of school for their birthday or a holiday and you get fined in England now. Stupid rule. Not sure about Scotland, i would doubt it as playing hooky is a part of growing up. 

Crazy – who levies the fine?  (and does anyone pay it??).

The bank just notified me that they have refused my request for mortgage assistance so will start taking action to recover their loan money.  I will keep everyone up to date with progress on moving from having a (leaky) roof over my head to living under a bridge – but if I go quiet all of a sudden you will know they shut me down and kicked me out.

I am still waiting on the customer complaints people to deal with the stuff-up they made with my redraw facility and the banking ombudsman won’t accept a claim until they do (or don’t do) whatever they decide to do (or not do).  Nothing like being asset rich and cash poor with unpaid debts looming and the economy here in tatters-  with a right-wing government having slashed the public sector (you know – the charming chap who is going to ‘shirtfront’ Putin at the upcoming Oz G20).  We have a microcosm of the USA during the GFC here in Canberra with house prices way below what the debts on them are.

Believe it or not I am no longer upset by any of this nonsense – I just want it over with.  I just wish ‘you-know-who’ hadn’t got us in this mess; “I told you so” just doesn’t seem enough as a response.

meanmistermustard said
@Mr. Kite, @trcanberra.

From the UK government website (see “penalty notice”)

3. Legal action to enforce school attendance

Local councils and schools can use various legal powers if your child is missing school without a good reason:

• Parenting Order

• Education Supervision Order

• School Attendance Order

• penalty notice

You can be given one or more of these orders but the council doesn’t have to do this before prosecuting you.

Parenting Order

This means you have to go to parenting classes. You’ll also have to do what the court says to improve your child’s school attendance.

Education Supervision Order

If the council thinks you need support getting your child to go to school but you’re not co-operating, they can apply to a court for an Education Supervision Order.

A supervisor will be appointed to help you get your child into education. The local council can do this instead of prosecuting you, or as well.

School Attendance Order

You’ll get a School Attendance Order if the local council thinks your child isn’t getting an education. You have 15 days to provide evidence that you’ve registered your child with a school or that you’re giving them home education.

The order will require you to send your child to a specific school. If you don’t, you may be prosecuted.

Penalty notice

Instead of being prosecuted, you can be given a penalty notice. The penalty is £60, rising to £120 if paid after 21 days but within 28 days. If you don’t pay the fine you may be prosecuted.

Prosecution

You could get a fine of up to £2,500, a community order or a jail sentence up to 3 months. The court also gives you a Parenting Order.

And a report from the BBC: Sharp rise’ in parental fines for term-time holidays.

 

trcanberra, sorry to hear the bank are pushing in on you, hopefully you can work something out quickly so its all settled without too much stress and loss. And please don’t go silent on us too quickly and for too long, it’s bad enough that we have no idea what’s happened with @SatanHimself after his last post. 

[snip]
 

Wow – that is unbelievable – I’m sad to see how far the UK has sunk under the current government.  I wonder how much my fine would have been for taking all 3 kids with us on our trip to Europe in 2007? – we were away for 2 months.

meanmistermustard said
For giving your kids such an incredible experience they would probably be taken away and given to another family as you’d miss the first round of parenting classes due to being imprisoned for taking them to around Europe.

It was one of those ideas to tackle the issue of kids who are never in school and whose parents couldnt care less about them getting an education but it ended up becoming too heavily imposed and now its hitting parents who’s kids are off for legitimate reasons. It doesn’t help that travel companies, holiday resorts etc hike their prices up massively as soon as the school holidays approach. But the government aren’t interested in that side of it all.

And the alternative to the Coalition are Labour. 

Plus from what I have seen local government has been so starved of revenue in the UK that they are using it as a revenue-raising tool rather than what it was (supposedly) meant for.  I can’t believe that they took away head-teacher discretion – makes it more apparent that it was only partly intended to help kids.

Best of luck, LHL. Hope it is nothing serious.