FOI2026/2094

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, please provide the following recorded information held by your Integrated Care Board (ICB) concerning NHS-funded Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) operating in schools and colleges within your area.

Please cover the financial years 2024/25 and 2025/26, providing annual figures for each year where available. For 2025/26, please provide final outturn figures where available and identify any figures that remain provisional or forecast

1. Funding and expenditure

For each financial year, please provide:

The total budget or allocation for MHSTs.

Actual expenditure on MHSTs.

Any recorded underspend, overspend or unspent funding carried forward.

The amount allocated to establishing new teams, expanding existing teams and maintaining existing provision, where these amounts are separately recorded.

Any savings targets, efficiency requirements or cost-reduction plans specifically affecting MHSTs, including the value of the planned savings and whether they were achieved.

Any recorded transfers of MHST funding to other services or budget lines.

Please distinguish planned budgets, forecasts and actual expenditure.

2. Availability and access 2024/25

For each financial year, please provide the following information where held:

The number of MHSTs commissioned, operational and planned but not yet operational.

The number of schools and colleges covered by operational MHSTs.

The number of pupils or learners within the population covered by MHSTs.

The number of schools or colleges awaiting MHST coverage, where recorded.

The number of children and young people receiving support through MHSTs, distinguishing between those receiving at least one contact and those completing a course of support, where these measures are recorded.

Any recorded waiting-time measures for accessing MHST support, including the relevant definition and reporting period.

Please identify the geographical level of each figure and distinguish between the number of schools covered and the proportion of pupils or learners covered.

3. Changes to provision and service impacts

Please provide copies of any existing reports, business cases, board papers, financial recovery plans or service reviews produced or considered during 2025/26 that document:

Proposed or implemented reductions in MHST budgets, staffing, capacity or service availability.

Delays to planned team launches or expansion.

Reductions in the number of schools or colleges covered.

Changes to waiting times, caseloads, staffing vacancies or the number of children receiving support associated with financial constraints or savings plans.

Assessments of the effects of savings plans on access to early mental health support for children and young people.

I am seeking recorded information about MHSTs specifically, rather than all children’s mental health services.

Question 1:

In response to your query, the ICB financial position for the 2 years 2024/25 and 2025/26 is as follows. For 2024/25 the MHST programme was included separately as part of the MH SDF (service development fund) allocation. For 2025/26 the MH SDF funding, with minor exceptions, was mainstreamed and included as MHIS (Mental health investment standard) expenditure/plans as directed by NHSE. By its nature, SDF funding is usually fixed term with an assumption that it becomes “business as usual” at a later date.  

The amount transferred into MHIS by NHSE in 2025/26 was £12.2m and which reflected the outturn expenditure for 2024/25. The allocation made by NHSE was lower in 2025/26 than in 2024/25 and reflected an overall reduction in SDF allocations made by NHSE to the ICB of about 5%.  For 2025/26 the ICB internal plan/budget however for MHST was set based on our expected forecast for the schemes in place and sufficient to deliver any increases expected within the MHST programme, and was set at £14.7m, including inflation uplift. Expenditure captures costs in line with mobilisation during the year.

The ICB’s MHST programme was not subject to any savings target, efficiency target or savings plan. There is no plan to request the provider organisations to deliver any savings plan. Budgets were allocated to continue the roll out of the national NHS England programme.

Within the current financial regime, the ICB is not allowed to carry forward any unused funds into following years, therefore any slippage against the allocation in 2024/25 was utilised by NHS GM ICB against its overall financial position, and towards the GM system as a whole.

The funding allocated for 2024/25 and 2025/26 was to maintain established teams and the expansion of teams in line with the national programme. This is not recorded separately between establishing, expanding and maintaining teams. The response provided in Question 2 provides the number of teams mobilised with this expenditure.

Question 2:

During 2024/25, Greater Manchester had MHST 29 team equivalents operational and 6 in planned mobilisation (up to Wave 12). 35 total.

During 2025/26, Greater Manchester had MHST  35 team equivalents operational. A further 3 team equivalents were mobilised through Wave 14 from January 2026. 38 total.

The number of schools and colleges covered by operational MHSTs.

2024/2025- 401 – geographical break down not available

2025/2026- 493 – geographical break down below

The number of pupils or learners within the population covered by MHSTs.

2024/2025- 259,048

2025/2026- 308,079

The number of schools or colleges awaiting MHST coverage, where recorded.

2024/2025- 890

2025/2026- 819

NB – Department for Education setting list increased from 1291 eligible settings in 2024/25 to 1312 in 2025/26

The number of children and young people receiving support through MHSTs, distinguishing between those receiving at least one contact and those completing a course of support, where these measures are recorded.

Rolling number of people receiving at least one contact in the last 12 months

2024/2025- March 2025 6305

2025/2026- March 2026 6830

MHST waiting-time measures are not currently reported routinely to NHS Greater Manchester ICB. Therefore, the ICB does not hold any associated waiting-time definitions or reporting periods centrally.

Completion rates for MHST interventions are not currently routinely reported to NHS Greater Manchester ICB and therefore this information is not held centrally. The information requested would need to be obtained from individual providers and collated manually.

Question 3: NHS Greater Manchester ICB has not implemented any reductions to MHST budgets, staffing, capacity, service availability or school and college coverage during 2025/26. MHST expansion continues in line with the national programme requirements and associated funding allocations.

The ICB has not produced or considered any reports, business cases, board papers, financial recovery plans or service reviews during 2025/26 relating to reductions in MHST provision arising from savings requirements.

The ICB is continuing to commission the expansion of MHST provision in line with national expectations and has not reduced funding for this service.