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The Government’s justice data for fines issued in court indicates that they have doubled from £12,609 in 2007 to £25,050 in 2025. Court fines often go unpaid: the total amount owed to the court service is £4.4 billion, which includes confiscation orders such as assets from serious crime. The outstanding amount owed for just the fines and court costs is £4.421 billion. Research carried out by the Centre for Justice Innovation demonstrated that nearly half of court fines are not paid within the timeframe that legislation states it should be paid within. This indicates that prosecuting parents is not a good outcome for the justice system either, as it spends resource and time in enforcing fines that are not being paid. Court fines have a disproportionate impact on people living in poverty, a known factor in truancy, with research finding that fines increase people’s poverty, worsen their debts and impact their mental and physical health.