DfE makes huge cut to Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund payments
- trushali Kotecha
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
By Mithran Samuel on April 14, 2025 in Children, Social work leaders
£5,000 limit on therapy funding cut to £3,000, while department also scraps provisions for ASGSF to match fund more expensive support and separately resource assessments
Photo posed by model (credit: Erika Richard/Adobe Stock)
The Department for Education (DfE) has made huge cuts in payments for families to resource therapy through the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF).
Less than two weeks after confirming that the fund would continue – one day after it expired – the DfE has made four significant restrictions to the support each child or family can receive through the ASGSF in 2025-26:
The £5,000 fair access limit (FAL) for the cost of therapy provided each year – in place since 2016 – is being cut to £3,000.
The ASGSF will no longer match fund more expensive support packages above this limit. It previously contributed 50% of the cost of annual therapy up to a maximum of £30,000 for cases that were higher risk or met other specified criteria, with councils funding the rest.
Families will no longer be able to benefit from a separate allowance of £2,500 to fund specialist assessments over and above any funding for therapy. While funding of up to £2,500 for an assessment will be available, this must be resourced from within the overall £3,000 limit, potentially leaving families with only £500 for therapy.
It will end – for the time being – provisions for children and families to receive support across financial years, meaning all therapy packages or assessments funded through the ASGSF in 2025-26 will have to have been completed by 31 March 2026.
Changes ‘designed to maximise number of children supported’
The overall level of the funding in 2025-26, at £50m, is similar to that provided annually since 2022-23, and in a letter to stakeholders, the DfE said the restrictions were designed to “maximise the number of children who are able to access this fund” in the context of “significantly” growing demand.
“We recognise that this is a significant change, but it is being made to ensure that the funding can continue to support as many families as possible,” said the DfE’s ASGSF team leader, Helen Walker. “The Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund will still enable those eligible to access a significant package of therapeutic support, tailored to meet their individual needs.”
However, the £5,000 limit was widely seen by sector leaders and providers as inadequate to fund therapy for up to 12 months for care-experienced children with significant trauma due to the abuse and neglect they had suffered.
Increased delay in accessing support
And the decision is also set to trigger further delays to the provision of therapy for children and families left in limbo due to the DfE only confirming the continuation of the ASGSF for 2025-26 on 1 April, the start of the financial year.
Regional adoption agencies (RAAs) and local authorities had lodged applications with the ASGSF – which is managed on the DfE’s behalf by consultancy Mott MacDonald – that had been put on hold pending a decision on the fund’s continuation.
However, any of these that exceed the new £3,000 limit will now be returned to applicants, meaning RAAs and councils will need to amend and resubmit them.
This is likely to mean longer waits for therapy to start for newly approved children and families and damaging breaks in support for those for whom councils or RAAs needed to reapply for funds.
‘Further worry, uncertainty and delay’
The news sparked consternation across the adoption and kinship care sectors.
Adoption England, which the DfE funds to co-ordinate the work of RAAs and provide leadership to the sector, described both the delay to the confirmation of the ASGSF and the reduction in support as “disappointing”.
“Many applications will need to be reviewed and resubmitted and this will lead to further worry and uncertainty and delays for families in accessing help,” said its national adoption strategic lead, Sarah Johal.
“Many parents and carers of children who are adopted and in special guardianship arrangements are experiencing serious challenges in caring for children who have experienced loss, separation and trauma and they need access to a range of therapeutic support.”
£3,000 limit ‘inadequate for children at high risk’
Jay Vaughan, chief executive of Family Futures, a voluntary adoption agency (VAA) and therapy provider, said the decision to end both separate funding for specialist assessments and match funding of therapy was “a massive blow”.
She said: “How can you say, ‘we’ll book in dyadic developmental psychotherapy or play therapy for your child’ if you don’t know what the family is struggling with? So there has to be an assessment process. And the most complex children – the ones who are highest risk – get match funding and they are suddenly plummeted into £3,000.
“We have children new in placement who are eight – they can’t eat, they can’t sleep, they won’t allow a parent to do anything to help them, and we’re looking at £3,000?”
She said £3,000 would provide 10-20 short therapy sessions, depending on an agency’s hourly rate, and added that this was far from sufficient for children at high risk of harming themselves and others.
Vaughan warned that the DfE’s approach risked many placements breaking down and children being returned to the care system.
‘Short-sighted’ decision making
While charity Adoption UK and the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies (CVAA) acknowledged the economic pressures facing the country, both described the decision as “short-sighted”.
“Unresolved trauma, adopter/carer burnout and family instability do not save money – they lead to greater costs to society down the line,” said CVAA chief executive Satwinder Sandhu.
“This move will also discourage prospective adopters, at a time when every effort should be made to support them in their wish to adopt a child.”
For Adoption UK, chief executive Emily Frith said: “It’s very short-sighted at a time when there are more adoptive families in crisis than ever before, and distressing news for everyone who has already faced an agonising wait to find out whether the fund will continue to exist at all.”
‘A confused and ill-considered approach to kinship support’
Kinship issued a similar message, saying today’s news was “a further blow to kinship carers, who are already experiencing ongoing disruption to their children’s therapy following the government’s delayed commitment to renewing the ASGSF earlier this month”.
While the government’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill includes a duty on councils to publish a kinship local offer, including signposting carers to therapeutic support, “that very support is now being eroded”, said Kinship’s chief executive, Lucy Peake.
“Furthermore, it’s clear that the welcome steps taken by the government to boost awareness of the ASGSF and increase applications from eligible kinship families are not being supported by commensurate funding to provide the level of therapeutic support needed,” she added.
“This confused and ill-considered approach to the sequencing of kinship care reform risks pushing more families to breaking point.”
Timely support ‘can make crucial difference to mental health’
Family Rights Group (FRG) said it was “deeply disappointed” by the DfE’s decision to reduce the cap on ASGSF payments.
“These children have often experienced tragedy or trauma, and timely access to specialist support can make a crucial difference to their mental health and wellbeing,” said chief executive Cathy Ashley.
“Now, many families will face further uncertainty, with their applications requiring review and processing times likely to increase. This means even longer waits for children who urgently need support.”
For children’s charity Coram, which hosts the London-based RAA Coram Ambitious for Adoption, chief executive Carol Homden said: “Whilst it is welcome that there is commitment to sustaining the fund as a vital access route to help, it is disappointing to see that as more children are coming forward, their access is being further limited. This can only have further consequences for them and drive up NHS costs.”
Spending review ‘must secure long-term therapy funding’
In the DfE’s letter to stakeholders, Walker restated the government’s position that ASGSF funding beyond March 2026 was subject to upcoming spending review, which will set public expenditure limits from 2026-29.
For Adoption England, Johal said that “securing longer-term funding [for the ASGSF] must be a key priority for the government in the forthcoming spending review,” a sentiment echoed by Adoption UK.
FRG head Ashley called for “a dedicated, specialist fund that ensures all children in kinship care can access therapeutic support when they need it“, a point also made by Kinship chief executive Peake.
She warned that “further delays to improved financial, practical and emotional support for kinship families will only increase the risk of breakdown and more children entering an already overstretched care system”.
About the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund
The ASGSF is currently for children and young people up age 21 or 25 with an education, health and care plan, who:
are living (placed) with a family in England while waiting for adoption;
were adopted from local authority care in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland and live in England;
were adopted from abroad and live in England with a recognised adoption status;
were in care before a special guardianship order (SGO) was made;
left care under a special guardianship order that was subsequently changed to an adoption order, or vice versa;
are under a residency order or child arrangement order (CAO) and were previously looked after;
were previously looked after but whose adoption, special guardianship, residency or CAO placement has broken down, irrespective of any reconciliation plans.
In 2023-24, 16,970 therapy applications were approved for services, along with 2,718 for specialist assessments.
Therapies funded include creative and physical therapies, family therapy, psychotherapy, parent training and therapeutic life story work.
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