There were 151,125 penalty notices issued to parents in England for their children's term-time absence from school during 2014-15. The figure represents a 54% increase compared with the previous year. There has been a high-profile legal challenge to whether parents should have to pay fines for taking children on holiday during the school term. A Department for Education spokesman said: "Children should not be taken out of school without good reason."The Department for Education figures include parents who have taken their children on term-time holidays - and the figures show that a high proportion of parents paid the penalty fines within 28 days. But there were more than 21,000 cases where parents did not pay and were prosecuted - and in another 17,000 cases the penalties were dropped.
The figures show how fines for parents have become more common - with almost a fivefold increase in penalties over the past five years.
A separate set of figures, based on Freedom of Information requests carried out by the Santander bank, estimated that the fines levied last year amounted to £5.6m.
