Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to (a) support and (b) improve decision-making in the provision of education, health and care plan assessments.

Local authorities have a statutory responsibility to assess whether children and young people have special educational needs that require an education, health and care (EHC) plan. Under the EHC needs assessment process, local authorities must seek information and advice from a range of partners, including the child or young person and their parents, their school or college (if any), relevant health and social care partners, an educational psychologist and any other relevant professionals.

Local authority special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) caseworkers are a key part of the SEND system, co-ordinating the assessment process to develop EHC plans and working closely with families, schools and other professionals to support children and young people with SEND.

In March 2024, the department funded a short-term project to train local authority caseworkers, reaching around 260 attendees. The training was aimed at improving understanding of SEND legislation to support more effective decision-making and was delivered by the Independent Provider of Special Education and Condition Data Collection.  We are currently considering options for future support for this workforce.

In addition, we recognise the critical role of professionals such as educational psychologists within the SEND system, including their statutory contribution to EHC needs assessments.

To support this, we are investing over £21 million to train 400 more educational psychologists from 2024, which builds on the £10 million currently being invested in a cohort of over 200 trainees who began their training in September 2023.

As these trainees complete their studies, they will join the workforce to support the capacity of local authority educational psychology services, including in delivering assessments. Trainees who have had their training funded by the department are required to remain in local authority employment for a minimum period. This requirement will increase from two to three years for those trainees beginning their course in September 2024.

This is to support local authority services to recruit and retain their educational psychology workforce, benefiting from the public investment in their training, and supporting the delivery of statutory assessments and wider work.