Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans her Department has to help tackle workforce shortages among educational psychologists in Surrey.

Educational psychologists (EPs) play a key role in supporting children and young people, particularly those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

The department is investing around £1.8 billion for local area partnerships to develop Experts at Hand (EaH) offers which will provide access to support from key services, including EPs and trainees. This includes approximately £8.3 million for Surrey.

Local areas will determine how best to use funding for EaHs to meet need through locally-led workforce planning, taking account of local need, existing services and workforce capacity.

We are also working with the EP sector to maximise opportunities for growing the EP workforce across England, including in Surrey.

As set out in the SEND reform consultation, the government is investing £26 million to train at least 200 EPs per year from 2026/27, with further investment to train more over the following three years, subject to future spending reviews. This builds on the £31 million already invested since 2023.

We have increased the number of places available on the Educational Psychologist Funded Training programme in 2027 to 239, offering an additional 35 places that are spread across England.