Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she is taking steps to increase the number of educational psychologists working with schools.

The Department is increasing the number of educational psychologists working with schools by building capacity in the educational psychology workforce. It is achieving this by:

a) Increasing the number of Department funded educational psychology doctorate training places from 150 per intake at present to 160 per intake from 2018, at a cost of £7.7M per course intake (currently £7.2M).

b) Advertising for an educational psychology training provider in the East of England to deliver training from 2018. This will address the current anomaly of the region being the only one in England without a local educational psychology training provider. In addition to generating a flow of newly qualified educational psychologists locally, trainees while they are on the course will work in local services, including schools, while on practice placement in years two and three.

In addition, the Minister is meeting a group of national representatives from the profession (The Association of Educational Psychologists (AEP), National Association of Principal Educational Psychologists (NAPEP) and British Psychological Society) on 14 March, to discuss the issues facing the profession and possible solutions.