§ Mrs. Iris RobinsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1) how many pupils are(a) being attended to by educational psychologists and (b) waiting to be attended to by educational psychologists in each of the education board areas in Northern Ireland; [131777]
(2) how many pupils (a) requested an appointment with an educational psychologist and (b) succeeded in obtaining such an appointmenst in each of the education board areas in Northern Ireland in each of the past five years; [131778]
(3) what the average waiting times for a child to get an appointment with an educational psychologist in each of the Education Board areas in Northern Ireland was in each of the past five years. [131779]
§ Jane KennedyThis information is not available from the Education and Library Boards within the time scale. I will write to the hon. Member as soon as it is available.
§ Mrs. Iris RobinsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many educational psychologists are employed by each of the Education and Library Board areas in Northern Ireland; and how many(a) were employed, (b) retired and (c) recruited in each board area in each of the last five years. [131783]
§ Jane KennedyI have been informed by the Education and Library Boards that the number of Educational Psychologists employed by each Board area, in each of the past five years, is as follows.
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 BELB1 17.9 21 22 23.5 26 NEELB1 17.5 20.5 22 23 23 SEELB1 17.5 20 20 22.3 22.6 SELB1 N/a 22.75 24.8 26.26 24.1 WELB1 13 14.5 20.5 22.5 24.5 1 Full time equivalent In the time scale available it is not possible to provide recruitment and retirement data correlating with the data in the table above. I will write to the hon. Member later with these figures once they have been confirmed with the Education and Library Boards.