Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to (a) improve the (i) timeliness and (ii) depth of educational psychology assessments and (b) end the use of short virtual consultations for children with complex needs.

Educational psychologists play a critical role in the support available to children and young people, including providing statutory input into education, health and care assessments. We know that current workforce shortages can be a barrier to timely input, which is why we are investing over £21 million to train 400 more educational psychologists from September 2024. This is in addition to the £10 million currently being invested in the training of over 200 educational psychologists who began their training in September 2023.

The special educational needs and disabilities code of practice does not stipulate the methodology that any of the professionals involved in assessments should use. We regard this as a matter for the respective professional bodies.