Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she had made an assessment of the adequacy of the number of educational psychologists in each local education authority in England.

The department understands the critical role educational psychologists play in the support available to children and young people, including those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Data on the number of educational psychologists employed by local authorities is collected by the department within the School Workforce Census, which can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.

Whilst it is the responsibility of local authorities as the employers of educational psychology services to ensure that their services are adequately staffed, the department is taking measures to support local authority educational psychology services by investing in developing the future workforce of educational psychologists.

The department is investing over £21 million to train 400 more educational psychologists from this year. This builds on the £10 million currently being invested in the training of over 200 educational psychologists who began their training in September 2023.

Following graduation, trainees who have had their training funded by the department are required to remain in local authority employment for a minimum period. To support local authority services to recruit and retain their educational psychology workforce, this requirement will increase to three years for those trainees beginning their course this year. This will allow local authority services to benefit from the public investment in educational psychologist training, and support their delivery of statutory assessments and wider work.