TRUANCY rates in Bolton have dropped despite concerns that the problem is increasing nationally.

But education officials have warned that confusion over compiling the figures is making it hard to assess the true scale of the problem.

The number of days when pupils were out of school without permission has dropped by more than 12,000 in the latest figures.

Across Bolton secondary schools, a total of 44,924 days of absence were recorded in 1998/1999, but that dropped to 32,299 days last year.

The overall truancy rate has fallen by 33 per cent in Bolton from 1997 to 2001.

Unauthorised absence figures are based on the number of pupils in secondary schools multiplied by the total number of sessions the school is open every year.

If all 17,500 pupils in Bolton secondary schools had attended classes each time the schools were open in 1998/1999, there would have been 5.31 million attendances. Last year the 18,006 pupils would have made 5.39 million attendances.

But despite the improving record, Bolton's chief education social worker Ian Price has claimed that the figures are 'nonsense' because the Government has never given a clear enough explanation of what should be considered as truancy.

Mr Price is confident that his team is tackling the problem head-on thanks to regular sweeps of the town with the police.

However, he is concerned that Bolton headteachers have such differing views of what counts as authorised and unauthorised absence that it would be impossible to find a true picture of how many children are playing truant. The Local Education Authority can only compile figures from details provided by schools, and some headteachers are stricter than others in accepting explanations from parents.

Mr Price said: "According to the Government there is no such thing as truancy, just authorised or unauthorised absence.

"One head might find it acceptable for a child to be off school if a parent sends in a letter saying they had to stay off because the gas man was coming round, whereas another head would find that unacceptable and class the absence as unauthorised. This makes the statistics a nonsense."

Mr Price is more interested in the growing attendance rates than absence figures as this statistic is based on hard facts, or "bottoms on seats". Attendance rates in Bolton have improved by 11 per cent in the same period.

Some critics claim the national truancy rate has risen by 11.4 per cent since Labour came to power in 1997, but the Department for Education and Skills claims the figure has remained static at just 1 per cent.