Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she plans to take to increase recruitment in SEND services.

The department knows that children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) frequently require access to additional support from a broad specialist workforce across education, health and care, including speech and language therapy and educational psychologists.

This is why the department introduced the speech and language degree apprenticeship, which is now in its third year of delivery and offers an alternative pathway to the traditional degree route into a successful career as a speech and language therapist.

The department is working closely with NHS England to improve access to community health services, including speech and language therapy, for children and young people with SEND.

The department is also investing a further £21 million to train 400 more educational psychologists from 2024, in addition to the £10 million currently being invested in the training of over 200 educational psychologists, who began their training in September 2023.