Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many pupil referral units in England employ a mental health specialist.

The information requested is not collected centrally.

It is up to pupil referral units (PRUs) to decide what staff and support arrangements to be put in place. Some PRUs put in place joint working arrangements with local mental health services. To support all types of schools and colleges to build links with local mental health services, we recently announced that we will be extending our pilot of joint training for single points of contact in education and mental health services to up to 1,200 schools in 20 areas. The initial pilot ran last year and the evaluation will be published later this year. Initial results showed that the training had a positive effect on joint working to secure access to mental health support.