Spending on mental health support teams (MHSTs) in schools saves more money than it costs within two years, researchers have said, recommending the teams are rolled out country-wide.
Savings to the government outweigh the costs of an average £676 per pupil within two years, a team of researchers at the London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Performance has said.
Researchers also said there is a “powerful argument” for promoting structured wellbeing lessons in schools based on their analysis.
The findings come as the new Labour government gears up for its first budget in October.
‘Policies should form basis of next spending review’
Lord Layard, who led the research team, said estimates of the benefits and costs of policies for wellbeing should inform the next spending review.
The researchers analysed the cost of several policies to improve people’s wellbeing and compared that cost to the modelled benefits of the policy in terms of raising wellbeing.
The report argues the government should make a “major change in priorities” to spending on the policies that have the largest positive impact on wellbeing.
Using former study results, researchers assumed recovering from anxiety, conduct and depressive disorders leads to an improvement in wellbeing of 0.7 points when measured on a scale of 1-10.
They estimated an average cost of £676 per pupil across these conditions for MHSTs’ treatment, based on NICE guidelines.
This was compared with potential future cost savings for children who recover. For example, the researchers said around £1,700 more is spent a year on children with emotional health disorders by the time they are 12-15 years old, especially in terms of frontline services and special education.
Even more is spent on children with conduct disorders.
As a result, the report authors estimated savings from early treatment by MHSTs would outweigh the costs for the average child within two years.
Moreover, even if savings are not considered - the benefits to the wellbeing of pupils is considered to outweigh the costs, researchers said.
Findings highlight ‘urgency’ of developing service
“This underlines the urgency of developing the service across the whole country,” the report states.
The researchers also said it is important conduct disorders are treated as much as other disorders and that MHSTs are upgraded to have as many skilled “high-intensity” therapists as “low-intensity” ones.
Mental health support teams were launched in 2018 and the former government said around 600 teams would be operational by March 2025 covering more than half of pupils.
However, the latest data released in May showed less than half of pupils are in settings participating in the programme.
The “glacial” pace MHSTs are being rolled out to schools was described as “unacceptable”, by the Association of School and College Leaders’ SEND and inclusion specialist Margaret Mulholland.
Impact of structured wellbeing lessons
The research also examined the impact of structured wellbeing lessons in schools through relationships, sex and health education (RSHE).
Costs between £111 to £732 per pupil were estimated for a weekly lesson between ages 11-15, based on the cost of materials and teacher training on social and emotional learning, mental illness, mindfulness and more.
The higher estimate is to cover extra wage costs for schools where there is no existing weekly RSHE lesson.
Averaging between those costs, researchers said spending on a structured weekly wellbeing lesson would have a high benefit-to-cost ratio.
Researchers also estimated there could be some cost savings from spending on this policy if it improved behaviour.
Former cabinet secretary Lord Gus O’Donnell said: “This is an exceptionally important report. It should lead to major improvements in how the government uses our money to improve lives.”
Finally, researchers also looked at whether reducing class sizes would affect wellbeing. From analysing existing studies, they concluded the evidence does not point to a significant impact on outcomes from small changes in class sizes.
However, reducing overall class sizes by one pupil would cost around £2 billion, they said.
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