COUNCILLORS are today being urged to back plans to introduce £50 fines for parents of truants.

Darlington Borough Council is debating the proposal after research in November last year identified 90 children not at the town's schools in a single day.

The council's director of education, Geoff Pennington, said: "It is important in deterring children from absenting themselves from school and discouraging parents and carers from taking their children out of schools on a casual basis, for example to make shopping trips, that there is a disincentive."

Truancy officers will issue the fines, although no more than two notices per child will be issued in an academic year.

There will be formal warnings before a notice is given, except when parents have deliberately taken their child out of school for a holiday, knowing they do not have permission.

The fine will be £50 if paid in 28 days and £100 within 42 days, and could be introduced from January.