Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 27 January 2015, to the hon. Member for Barnsley Central to Question 221804, when his Department plans to complete the prevalence survey on children with mental health problems.

A date has not yet been set for completion of a new prevalence survey of children and young people’s mental health. The timing will be determined primarily by the procurement process for commissioning a new prevalence survey. Once a successful bidder is in place, there will be further stakeholder engagement work to determine the exact questions and topics the survey will cover. Our experience of the procurement process for the 2004 prevalence survey suggests the date for completion of a new prevalence survey is unlikely to be before 2017.

The duration of the survey will be determined through open competition. Based on the experience of the previous survey from 2004, and other major population surveys, we anticipate it will take at least two years to develop, conduct and analyse the survey.