Education (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1953

11 Amendment of principal Act with respect to enforcement of school attendance

(1) For subsection (4) of section forty of the principal Act (which section provides for the enforcement of school attendance) there shall be substituted the following subsection:—

“(4) Without prejudice to the institution of proceedings for an offence against the last foregoing section or the exercise of the power conferred by subsection (3) of this section on a court to give a direction for the bringing of a child before a juvenile court, where a child of compulsory school age who is a registered pupil at a school fails to attend regularly thereat, the competent local education authority may of their own motion, if satisfied that it is necessary so to do for the purpose of securing the regular attendance of the child at school, bring the child before a juvenile court, and, where a child is brought before a juvenile court by virtue of this subsection, that court shall have the like power as is conferred on such a court by the said subsection (3).

For the purposes of this subsection—

(a) where the child in question belongs to the area of a local education authority, that authority and the local education authority for the area in which the school is shall each be a competent local education authority;

(b) where the child in question does not belong to the area of any local education authority, the competent local education authority shall be the local education authority for the area in which the school is”.

(2) In subsection (5) of the said section forty, after the words " juvenile court ", in the first place where they occur, there shall be inserted the words " and a child brought before such a court by virtue of subsection (4) of this section ".