Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the number of educational psychologists providing services to children in (a) Slough and (b) England.

Since 2020, the Department has increased the number of trainee educational psychologists (EPs), whose places it funds, from 160 to over 200 per year, across England. A total of approximately 920 trainees have been funded since 2018. Specific figures for Slough are not available.

Information on the state funded school workforce in England, including the number of EPs that were reported as being directly employed by local authorities in England, is published in the annual ‘School workforce in England’ national statistics release, which is available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.

According to the School Workforce Census, in November 2022 there were a reported 2,325 EPs directly employed by local authorities in England, including two by Slough Borough Council. The number employed in the private sector is not collected centrally. The figure provided also excludes local authorities who did not submit a return, or where EP provision has been outsourced or the provision has been shared with other local authorities.