Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of the number of places funded by the Educational Psychology Funded Training scheme on the number of educational psychologist staff.

Educational psychologists play a critical role in the support available to children and young people. The department is investing over £21 million to train 400 more educational psychologists from September 2024. This is in addition to the £10 million currently supporting the training of over 200 educational psychologists who began their training in September 2023.

To support retention, trainees starting from 2024 who have had their training funded by the department will be required to remain in local authority employment for a minimum period of three years after graduation.

The department does not hold information on what proportion of assistant educational psychologists left the profession before becoming fully qualified educational psychologists.