Identifying the costs and benefits of educational psychology: a preliminary exploration in two local authorities

Abstract

This article provides an account of a small-scale pilot study of the cost and perceived benefits of the educational psychology services in two comparably small local authorities in England. This study is preparatory to a more detailed examination of the costs and likely benefits of state provision of educational psychology services in England. The work is contextualised by acknowledgement of the growing pressure on local authority services to trade and for schools to directly commission the services of educational psychologists. Provisional findings indicate significant differences between the impact of the two services that participated. The authors offer speculation on the effects for local authorities and schools, and ways in which the study might be developed to provide more satisfactory answers to the questions of “what is the value of educational psychology in practice” and “how best to deploy educational psychology services?”

Keywords:

• Educational psychology
• costs
• benefits
• functions

Notes

1. The bursary will rise to £15,950 (£16,390 in London) for the intakes 2016–2018.

2. Failure to do so is likely to result in repayment of some or all of the costs of training.

3. For a more detailed exposition of this process, see Papps and Dyson (2004).

4. See, for example, Hayward et al. (2014).

5. Key indicators for two LAs are shown in the Appendix 2.

6. In the event, one of the PEPs was unable to meet us we interviewed a senior colleague instead.

7. The two LAs have been pseudonymised out of respect for the identities of participants and a love of France.

8. Following comments from a reviewer of the submitted article values in the tables have been rounded for simplicity and to preserve the anonymity of the services.

9. Of course, the strategy could not have come into being without the school but, if the school could have developed and delivered the strategy without the educational psychology service, it would have done so and saved the additional cost of the educational psychology service.