Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
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.
Answered by Edward Timpson
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.
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 17 January 2017 to Question 59084, on Educational Psychology, how many educational psychologists were employed in Norfolk in each year since 2010.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The head count of educational psychologists reported as employed by Norfolk local authority in November each year since 2011 is provided in the table below. Data for 2010 were not provided by the local authority.
2011 | 30 |
2012 | 25 |
2013 | 23 |
2014 | 28 |
2015 | 23 |
Source: School Workforce Census
The Department has approval to advertise for a new training provider in the East of England providing additional 10 training places.
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Written Statement of 9 January 2017, on mental illness, HCWS397, what preventative initiatives will be included in the programme of randomised control trials focusing on mental health in schools; and whether that programme will include school-based counselling in (a) primary schools, (b) secondary schools and (c) colleges and further education establishments.
Answered by Edward Timpson
Good mental health and wellbeing is a key priority for the Department. We have high aspirations for all children and young people and want them to be able to fulfil their potential. Counselling can play an important role in this, which is why we worked with experts to produce a blueprint for effective school-based counselling. We published an updated version of this advice last year. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/497825/Counselling_in_schools.pdf
The Prime Minister announced last month that the Department would launch a programme of randomised control trials of preventative programmes across three different approaches to mental health promotion and prevention.
We are currently working to procure contractors and plan to issue a prior information notice this month, followed by a call for expressions of interest in March, with the aim of having a final contract in place during May. The timetable for delivery will depend on each individual intervention trialled.
We envisage the contract will cover a suite of programmes and approaches to be tested in both primary and secondary schools. We acknowledge that colleges and further education establishments play an important role in supporting young people with mental health issues. However, given the wish to focus on early prevention activity and the nature of the approaches we have been considering that to date we are currently not planning on trialling the interventions for older young people. However, our procurement approach for this programme will allow further trials to be added if needed. We will be giving further consideration to how to improve preventative activity as we develop the new green paper on children and young people’s mental health.
There is already a large scale randomised control trial of school-based counselling underway: The ETHOS study, which is funded by the Economic & Social Research Council and led by the University of Roehampton. Department for Education officials are represented on the steering group to ensure it informs policy.
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Written Statement of 9 January 2017, on mental health, HCWS397, whether the programme of randomised control trials of preventative mental health support in schools will be tested in (a) primary schools, (b) secondary schools and (c) colleges and further education establishments.
Answered by Edward Timpson
Good mental health and wellbeing is a key priority for the Department. We have high aspirations for all children and young people and want them to be able to fulfil their potential. Counselling can play an important role in this, which is why we worked with experts to produce a blueprint for effective school-based counselling. We published an updated version of this advice last year. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/497825/Counselling_in_schools.pdf
The Prime Minister announced last month that the Department would launch a programme of randomised control trials of preventative programmes across three different approaches to mental health promotion and prevention.
We are currently working to procure contractors and plan to issue a prior information notice this month, followed by a call for expressions of interest in March, with the aim of having a final contract in place during May. The timetable for delivery will depend on each individual intervention trialled.
We envisage the contract will cover a suite of programmes and approaches to be tested in both primary and secondary schools. We acknowledge that colleges and further education establishments play an important role in supporting young people with mental health issues. However, given the wish to focus on early prevention activity and the nature of the approaches we have been considering that to date we are currently not planning on trialling the interventions for older young people. However, our procurement approach for this programme will allow further trials to be added if needed. We will be giving further consideration to how to improve preventative activity as we develop the new green paper on children and young people’s mental health.
There is already a large scale randomised control trial of school-based counselling underway: The ETHOS study, which is funded by the Economic & Social Research Council and led by the University of Roehampton. Department for Education officials are represented on the steering group to ensure it informs policy.
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Written Statement of 9 January 2017, on mental health, HCWS397, what the proposed timescale is for the programme of randomised control trials focusing on preventative mental health support in schools.
Answered by Edward Timpson
Good mental health and wellbeing is a key priority for the Department. We have high aspirations for all children and young people and want them to be able to fulfil their potential. Counselling can play an important role in this, which is why we worked with experts to produce a blueprint for effective school-based counselling. We published an updated version of this advice last year. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/497825/Counselling_in_schools.pdf
The Prime Minister announced last month that the Department would launch a programme of randomised control trials of preventative programmes across three different approaches to mental health promotion and prevention.
We are currently working to procure contractors and plan to issue a prior information notice this month, followed by a call for expressions of interest in March, with the aim of having a final contract in place during May. The timetable for delivery will depend on each individual intervention trialled.
We envisage the contract will cover a suite of programmes and approaches to be tested in both primary and secondary schools. We acknowledge that colleges and further education establishments play an important role in supporting young people with mental health issues. However, given the wish to focus on early prevention activity and the nature of the approaches we have been considering that to date we are currently not planning on trialling the interventions for older young people. However, our procurement approach for this programme will allow further trials to be added if needed. We will be giving further consideration to how to improve preventative activity as we develop the new green paper on children and young people’s mental health.
There is already a large scale randomised control trial of school-based counselling underway: The ETHOS study, which is funded by the Economic & Social Research Council and led by the University of Roehampton. Department for Education officials are represented on the steering group to ensure it informs policy.
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the potential annual cost to the NHS of the introduction of the Immigration Skills Charge (a) from April 2017 and (b) in the event of that charge being extended to cover nationals of countries within the European Economic Area after the UK has left the EU.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The Immigration Skills Charge will be paid by UK employers recruiting workers from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) through the Tier 2 skilled worker route. There are no plans to extend the charge to employers recruiting from the European Economic Area post-Brexit.
We have not estimated the potential annual cost to the NHS of the Immigration Skills Charge. The cost to the NHS will depend on its use of the Tier 2 skilled worker route.