Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many registered educational psychologists are (a) employed by her Department and (b) working in schools in each of the last five years.

The Department for Education does not employ any educational psychologists or keep a record of the number working in schools. Educational psychologists are traditionally employed by local authority educational psychology services. In 2013 the Department invested an additional £6.194 million, to increase the number of training places by 10% (from 120 to 132 intakes in 2014 and 2015). Between 2009- 2013 we commissioned an annual survey of these services[1]. The workforce survey noted a growing trend for educational psychology services to be directly commissioned by schools. The below table shows the number of registered educational psychologists working in local authority educational psychology services responding to the surveys.

Table 1. Educational psychologists working in local authority services 2009-2013

[1] The first three surveys were unpublished. The 2012 and 2013 were published by the Children’s Workforce Development Council (2013) Educational Psychology Workforce Survey 2012 and Department for Education (2014) Educational Psychology Workforce Survey 2013. Research Report https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/educational-psychology-workforce-survey-results-2013