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The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service may not have enough money to meet the aspirations behind its creation, according to an influential children and family law policy body, writes Jonathan Pearce.

The Advisory Board on Family Law - set up in 1997 to provide independent advice to the Lord Chancellor's department on the Children Act and family law - has criticised the department over the way Cafcass was set up and the money available to it to deliver the benefits of a unified court support service for vulnerable children in care and adoption proceedings.

"We are left with an overriding concern that the aspirations for the service which we expressed in our previous report may have been lost in the rush to ensure that the service is in place by the given date, and the funding required to meet the aspirations we have for Cafcass may not be available," says the advisory board's annual report.

The report criticises Cafcass's "extremely tight timetable", and says it is "imperative that Cafcass is properly funded".

In its previous report, the board had welcomed Cafcass and the opportunity "to create a coherent and integrated service". It had hoped the new service - officially launched in April - would provide children and their parents with information and advice, as well as facilitating access to other relevant services such as contact centres, mediation, domestic violence and abuse programmes.

An spokesperson for the Lord Chancellor's department denied allegations of insufficient funding for Cafcass, and described its first year as "one for consolidation".

"(The board) has previously expressed a desire for Cafcass to take on new and additional roles and responsibilities, and its point about funding refers to those," he said. "Many different parties have different hopes and ambitions for Cafcass in the future and all of these will be considered."