Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to her Answer of 18 January 2023 to Question 126752, on Schools: Mental Health Service, whether (a) her Department is or (b) school are recruiting any mental health specialists as part of her Department's plan to fund all schools and colleges in England to train senior mental health leads.

​​Overall, taking the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) allocations and the additional funding announced in the Autumn Statement 2022 together, core schools funding is increasing by £3.5 billion in 2023/24, compared to 2022/23. This takes the total core schools budget for 2023/24 to £57.3 billion.

​The Autumn Statement 2022 announced that the core schools budget will increase by £2.0 billion in 2023/24 and a further £2.0 billion in 2024/25, over and above totals announced at Spending Review 2021. This brings the core schools budget to a total of £58.8 billion in 2024/25, up from £43.5 billion in 2019/20. The increases in funding mean that 2024/25 will be the highest ever level of spending on schools in real terms per pupil.

​Schools will have flexibility over how they use the additional grant funding to support their pupils. It will enable school leaders to invest in the areas that we know positively impact educational attainment, including high quality teaching and targeted support to the children who need it most, as well as helping schools to manage higher costs, including, for example, higher energy bills and staff pay awards.

​As part of increases to the core schools budget, pupil premium rates will increase by 5% for 2023/24, a £180 million increase from 2022/23, taking total pupil premium funding to £2.9 billion. This will support schools to improve the attainment and wider outcomes of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, including those with social, emotional, and mental health needs.​

​The government is not directly recruiting mental health specialists for schools. Schools are best placed to decide what support to provide and which specialists to recruit to respond to the mental health needs of their pupils. Senior mental health leads will be trained to inform their school’s decision.​

​Where specialists are recruited into schools to support pupil mental health, it is vital that appropriate links are made with local, specialist services such as Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) to ensure children and young people receive the right support for their need. To strengthen the link between education settings and specialist services such as CAMHS, the department is introducing mental health support teams (MHSTs) in schools and colleges across the country. The teams include additional trained professionals who can provide support directly to pupils as well as supporting school staff.

​These teams now reach 26% of pupils, a year earlier than originally planned. This will increase to 399 teams, covering around 35% of pupils, by April 2023, with over 500 planned to be up and running by 2024. Further information is available at: https://www.england.nhs.uk/mental-health/cyp/trailblazers/.

​To expand access to specialist support, the NHS Long Term Plan commits to increasing investment in mental health services by at least £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24 and aims for an additional 345,000 children and young people to be able to access NHS-funded mental health support by 2023/24.