Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much her Department allocated to Solihull Council through the Wellbeing for Education Recovery Grant.

The department is offering a grant to all state schools and colleges to train a senior mental health lead, helping settings to develop their approach to mental health and wellbeing. Senior lead training grants are paid to eligible schools and colleges once they have completed their application and provided evidence of booking a department quality-assured course.

The department publishes a list of schools and colleges that have claimed a senior mental health lead training grant, updated throughout the year. This is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-data-on-funding-claims-by-institutions. This data confirms that 64 grants were paid in 2021/22 to schools and colleges in Solihull local authority and 8 were paid in 2022/23, totalling £86,400 in grants to date.

The department also provided Wellbeing for Education Return and Recovery grants to local authorities in 2020 to 2022, to provide additional support to state-funded schools and colleges to enable education staff to promote and support the wellbeing and mental health of pupils and students during the return to schools and in the COVID-19 pandemic recovery period.

Solihull local authority received a Wellbeing for Education Return grant of £29,994 in 2020/21, and a further Wellbeing for Education Recovery grant of £26,233 in 2021/22, amounting to a total of £56,227. This data can be obtained from the tables published in the Wellbeing for Education Return and Recovery grant determination letter, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/wellbeing-for-education-return-grant-s31-grant-determination-letter.