§ Mr. WillisTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many(a) speech therapists there are in (i) primary schools and (ii) secondary schools in each local education authority, (b) vacancies exist for such a post and (c) people are in training to be school speech therapists. [148705]
§ Jacqui SmithThis information is not collected centrally. However, DfEE, together with the Department of Health and the National Assembly for Wales, recently commissioned a survey of NHS speech and language therapy services in England and Wales. The findings from this survey are summarised in DfEE Research Report 239, published in November 2000. Two thirds of respondents to the survey indicated that they operated a designated speech and language therapy service to mainstream schools. This provision is mainly focused on primary schools.
Under the Standards Fund 2001–02, we are supporting expenditure of £ 82 million on special educational needs. We envisage that LEAs will spend £ 10 million of this on enhancing speech and language therapy provision in conjunction with the NHS and the voluntary sector.