An inquiry regarding the employment, funding, and service agreements related to therapy services provided in Western Australian schools, revealing a decentralised system where individual schools may directly employ therapists.

AnsweredQoN 6581Legislative Assembly
Asked
1 November 2011
Portfolio
Education

QuestionView source ↗

I refer to therapy services provided in schools, and I ask:
(a) what are the various categories of therapists employed to provide services to schools;
(b) are all these therapists employed by the Department of Health and if not, what agencies are they employed by;
(c) does the Department of Education pay the Department of Health or other employing agency for the use of therapists in schools and if so, what is the average annual cost to the Department of Education for 1.0 FTE of each of the therapists listed in (a);
(d) does the Department of Education have service agreements with the Department of Health or other agency for therapists working in schools and if so, will the Minister table those agreements;
(e) what criteria or formula is used to calculate the FTE therapy time allocated to each school or region; and
(f) if a formula or criteria is not used to determine FTE therapy time, how much funding is allocated per year per education region for therapy time in schools and how is this amount determined?

AnswerView source ↗

Answered
1 December 2011
Responded by
Minister for Education
Response time
30 days
(a) Speech Pathologists, Occupational Therapists and Physiotherapists are all employed to provide therapy in schools.
(b) No.  In addition to the Department of Education, Disability Services Commission and non-government providers such as The Centre for Cerebral Palsy Association and Rocky Bay Inc. employ therapists to provide a range of therapy services in schools.
(c) The Department of Education Central Office does not pay the Health Department to provide therapists to schools. Individual schools, may choose to employ therapists in order to fulfil local needs. Information about this type of services is held only by individual schools or centres.
(d) No.
(e)-(f) Not applicable.
Notice: This document is created or edited using unregistered or evaluation copy of rtLib valid for testing or development purposes only. To use it for productive or any other purposes please register it. You may purchase the license on
http://www.rtlib.com

Explore WA Government Data

Search the full archive in the free dashboard, or query programmatically via API.

Explore more