Quote: Michael Gove’s school reforms ‘ignored’ rise in pupils’ mental illness
Former education secretary was ‘just not interested’ in number of children falling ill, says ex-health minister Paul Burstow
A former health minister has claimed Michael Gove quietly downgraded the importance of mental health in schools during his time at the Department for Education amid an explosion in the number of young people falling ill.
Children’s mental health must be cared for. Or the consequences will be dire
Paul Burstow
Read more
Paul Burstow, care services minister in the coalition, suggests in an article online for the Observer that “Gove’s education ministry was just not interested in mental health and wellbeing”, despite the long-term costs to pupils and the exchequer. Gove, now justice secretary, was education secretary from 2010 to 2014.
While there has not been a national study of children’s mental health since 2004, there is evidence that the problem has been growing, adding to pressures on the NHS. Emergency admissions for teenagers with psychiatric conditions rose to 17,278 last year, almost double the number four years ago. According to data from the Health and Social Care Information Centre, there were 15,668 admissions of women aged 15 to 19 for cutting, burning or harming themselves, compared with 9,255 admissions in 2004.
Yet figures released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that between 2009-10 and 2013-14, the number of educational psychologists employed by local authorities dropped by 7%, with a loss of 80 educational psychologists across the country. Under Gove’s reforms of the education system, which saw the growth of academies and free schools, local authorities lost a role in providing expertise to thousands of schools across the country.
Burstow, a Liberal Democrat who lost his seat at the general election, claims that, at the same time as those reforms, Gove also disbanded a team of officials examining how to improve mental health in the country’s schools.
He writes: “One of my abiding frustrations when I was minister for mental health was the lack of engagement from the Department for Education. Despite the wealth of evidence on the vital importance of children’s mental health across a range of measures, from academic performance to behaviour and adult life chances, as education secretary Michael Gove chose to downgrade the importance given to the emotional wellbeing of young people.
“The team of officials leading on mental health in education was disbanded, absorbed into other programmes. Gove’s education ministry was just not interested in mental health and wellbeing; doing anything that might better equip teachers and schools to identify those in need was off the agenda. It was not seen as the core business of schools.
“Yet across public services it is schools that bear the greatest cost of poorly treated mental health.”
Burstow says he believes that Nicky Morgan, who has replaced Gove, “really cares about it”, although he writes of his concerns as further spending cuts are announced in the emergency budget this week. He writes: “Before the dissolution of parliament, together with [Liberal Democrat education minister] David Laws, she announced a package of measures to dramatically improve support for children’s mental health in and out of the classroom.
“This included new support for schools to broach mental health issues from eating disorders and self-harm to anxiety and depression, a new vision for counselling in schools, and funding for the voluntary sector to do more. All good stuff.
“But with a raft of further departmental cuts promised by the chancellor over the next five years, it will not be easy to build on the foundations that have been set, invest, and embed a focus on mental health when tough choices inevitably have to be made.”
Luciana Berger, shadow minister for public health, said: “The appalling neglect of children’s mental health services by this government has gone on for far too long.”
A Department for Education spokesman said: “We have invested millions across the board in improving mental health provision for young people and recognise the vital role of educational psychologists. That is why, during the last parliament we stepped in to provide support when numbers being trained fell. In 2014/15 we provided £5m per year to support 132 new training positions, up from 120 the previous year.” | 
