Bolton Council has sent out its first fixed penalty notices to parents whose children have persistently skipped school.

The £50 fines were sent out at the end of last term and if parents fail to pay they could find themselves in court.

Education chiefs say that truancy levels in Bolton are not rising significantly because schools are keeping a much closer watch on the numbers of children skipping lessons.

And parents of persistent truants will be hit in the pocket if their children miss school regularly.

Parents of any pupil who misses 20 sessions or more in one term will be sent a fixed penalty notice.

Under the new policy, a day's absence would count as two missed sessions.

The fine will be increased to £100 if the fixed penalty notice is not paid within 28 days.

If no payment is then made and there is no improvement in the child's attendance, the parents will be taken to court. The council's newly appointed executive member for Children's Services, Martyn Cox, said: "We want to send a strong message to all parents that we will not tolerate them not sending their children to school and that we will hold them responsible for their actions."

He said that in Bolton truancy levels has shown a slight rise, but that was because schools were becoming less tolerant of unauthorised absence and were making sure it was recorded.

Cllr Cox said that schools were putting a lot of hard work into tackling the problem of truancy.

According to a new report this week, truancy levels are continuing to rise nationally despite massive government spending over the last 10 years.

The report, published by the charity New Philanthropy Capital, says ministers have failed to improve truancy levels, despite a "plethora of initiatives and over £1 billion spent on tackling poor attendance and challenging behaviour in schools."

According to the report, at least 70,000 pupils in the UK skip school on average every day.

A Bolton Council spokesman said: "In Bolton we have used a range of initiatives to tackle truancy and will continue to do so as they have worked well in raising attendance in schools in the borough.

"These have included regular truancy sweeps in partnership with the police, parental notices and events to reward good attendance.

"We would refute suggestions that national initiatives are not working - in some cases, the number of unauthorised absences has gone up, but this is only because schools are becoming less tolerant of unauthorised absences and overall attendance is improving."

The overall figures for attendance in Bolton for the period September, 2004, to May, 2005, are 93.5 per cent, compared to 93.3 per cent last year.