Starmer fails to confirm future of Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund as end looms

Prime minister says 'details will be set out' on future of fund, with therapy for thousands of children set to end imminently and warnings that many will return to the care system

Prime minister Keir Starmer standing in the cabinet room in 10 Downing Street
Prime minister Keir Starmer (credit: Prime Minister's Office)

After this article was published, the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund was confirmed for another year, with £50m in funding. Get the latest on the ASGSF here.

Keir Starmer has failed to confirm the future of the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF), with the scheme to provide therapy for children and families just days from ending.

He was questioned about the ASGSF – worth £50m a year – at prime minister’s questions (PMQs) this week by LLiberal Democrat spokesperson for education, children and families Munira Wilson.

She said the adopted daughter of one of her constituents had been receiving “much-needed therapy” through the fund to help her recover from “immense trauma”, but was now among “thousands” who did not know whether they would get more help, with the ASGSF due to expire on 31 March.

Starmer fails to confirm fund’s future

Wilson said ministers had “repeatedly refused to confirm” whether the fund would continue and asked Starmer: “Can the prime minister give a cast-iron guarantee to vulnerable children, adoptive parents and kinship carers that he will not cut that fund?”

However, in response, the prime minister merely said the government would “set out the details just as soon as we can”, an answer that has been given repeatedly by children’s minister Janet Daby in response to multiple parliamentary questions.

The ASGSF funds specialist assessments and therapy for adopted children, those placed for adoption, former looked-after children cared for under special guardianship or child arrangements orders, and those whose permanence placements had broken down.

Prime minister links ASGSF and welfare reform

However, Starmer appeared to characterise it as part of the welfare system and link its future to the government’s reforms to disability and incapacity benefits.

“The welfare scheme overall is not defendable on terms, but it must be one that supports those who need it,” he told Wilson, adding that this should be on the “basis of the principles that I set out earlier”.

The “principles” appeared to be those Starmer gave in response to an earlier question from the SNP’s Stephen Flynn related to the government’s plans to tighten eligibility for the main working-age disability benefit, personal independence payment, and cut the level of incapacity benefits.

“We need to give support to those who need it, we need to help those who want to work into work, and we need to be clear that those who can work should work,” the prime minister replied.

In a post on X following PMQs, Wilson described Starmer’s failure to confirm the fund’s continuation as “very disappointing”.

The fund’s rules stipulate that therapy can be provided for up to 12 months – or until a £5,000 annual limit has been exhausted – after which the relevant council or regional adoption agency (RAA) must reapply on behalf of the relevant child or family.

‘Small proportion’ will therapy services beyond 31 March

In her responses to parliamentary questions, Daby has repeatedly pointed to a provision that enables families whose ASGSF funding was agreed in the latter part of 2024-25 to be able to continue therapy into 2025-26, meaning their services would not end on 31 March.

However, this applies to a very small proportion of recipients, said Jay Vaughan, chief executive of Family Futures, a voluntary adoption agency and therapy provider.

“What [Daby] is referring to is that, for about 2% of families, if they got funding in the latter part of the financial year, they can get split funding [carried over into the next financial year],” she said. “But that’s not allowed for 98% of families. Their contract and their work ends on 31 March.”

It is not known how many are affected, but 16,970 applicants were awarded therapy in 2023-24.

A similar point to Vaughan’s was made by sector charity Adoption UK, whose chief executive, Emily Frith, said: “The promise of funds for therapy being rolled over into the next financial year was welcome, but in reality applications have been backing up for some time and this does nothing for those who didn’t get their applications extended in time, or for many making new applications in the run up to March.”

‘The most traumatised children in society’

Family Futures, Adoption UK and several other organisations have been raising increasing concerns in recent weeks about the impact on children with significant trauma, and their families, of uncertainty over their ongoing therapy or services abruptly coming to an end.

Vaughan said there were the “most traumatised children in society”, and a withdrawal of services risked placements being disrupted and young people re-entering the care system.

“Some of those families are in a terrible state, really close to the edge of disruption. We’re talking pre-order, where they’re not even sure if they can proceed with the adoption.

“Some of them we’ve got have a high level of violence, where the parent doesn’t know if they can keep going. Some are children who are suicidal, who are self-harming, who somehow don’t meet the criteria for Camhs. All of those have nothing [come 31 March].”

She said the situation had been exacerbated by therapists not being able to prepare children and families for sessions coming to an end, because providers had repeatedly been given assurances over the past few months that an announcement confirming the fund’s continuation into 2025-26 was imminent.

Level of uncertainty ‘unacceptable’

Frith issued a similar message, saying that the situation was “creating additional anxiety and distress for children and families dealing with complex trauma”.

“This level of uncertainty is unacceptable when we are talking about children who have already experienced so much disruption in their lives,” she added.

Should the fund continue, councils and RAAs have pre-loaded applications onto the ASGSF’s portal, which could then be considered, said Adoption England, the national support body for RAAs.

However, Vaughan said there would be a “huge backlog” of applications for the fund – delivered by consultancy Mott MacDonald, on behalf of the Department for Education – to go through.

Therapists taking on other work, leaving potential gap in provision

Meanwhile, therapy providers who have historically delivered support through the fund are taking on other work, potentially leaving a gap in provision should the ASGSF continue.

“RAAs do have providers who are moving to take alternative work and reduce the capacity they hold for ASGSF, and therefore we are at risk of losing sufficiency in the local market that RAAs have worked hard to achieve,” said Adoption England.

“RAAs are undertaking work, funded by the DfE, to look at regional sufficiency and commissioning arrangements, and providers are clear that the delay in decision making regarding ongoing funding of the ASGSF does risk being able to achieve this.”

Vaughan added: “I’m aware of other agencies making mass redundancies. I’m aware of lone providers, who have mortgages and children, who are thinking, ‘I have no work’, because we’re all dependent on one funding stream.”

Alternative sources of funding and provision

Adoption England said there were “no other streams of funding for therapeutic support, other than the local NHS provision that is available for all children”, though RAAs were “continually developing their adoption support provision” and some had multi-disciplinary teams who deliver ASGSF-funded work.

Vaughan said that Family Futures had been given a donation to help continue services for children and families post-31 March 2025, while one RAA had offered the agency interim funding.

However, she added: “But that’s one out of the country.”

For Adoption UK, Frith said: “We would like to see the Department for Education communicate clearly with families about the support they are entitled to and to issue clear guidance to therapists and agency staff so that they can effectively advise parents and carers on the best course of action.”

ASGSF ‘must be extended’ – directors’ body 

The Association of Directors of Children’s Services, meanwhile, joined the calls for the fund to be renewed.

Nigel Minns, chair of the association’s health, care and additional needs policy committee, said the ASGSF provided “essential therapy” and “must be extended to provide longer term certainty for all those involved, including children, families, providers and local authorities”.

“Alongside this, the fund needs to be made more accessible and widened out, to avoid breaks in therapy and ensure more children and families get the help and support they need when it is needed,” he added.

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6 Responses to Starmer fails to confirm future of Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund as end looms

  1. R.Green March 28, 2025 at 2:55 pm #

    Hi, I have left a few responses on other articles relating to the support fund which are more detailed. Just cannot believe how cruel and thoughtless this Labour government are being on this issue. We are a family who have adopted with a wonderful son who needs his therapy and support. I never thought I would have voted in a Labour Party with lower caring and compassion than the Tories. Good luck everyone and yes if it comes to it we will protest this one.

  2. Sandy Teal March 28, 2025 at 5:14 pm #

    This decision to delay or stop this funding will have a devastating impact on the families and vulnerable young people with whom we work. We cannot stress how much the therapeutic support these families receive is a life line to them. This is not a luxury, it is an essential service.

  3. JJ March 30, 2025 at 11:14 am #

    So many adoption will break down without vital therapeutic input. This government really do not care. I’m currently trying to find ways to scrape the money together to pay for my daughters therapy.

  4. Emma Evans March 30, 2025 at 5:05 pm #

    Parenting severely traumatised children without specialist professional therapy is quite simply impossible. We have benefited hugely from the ASF & without it I honestly don’t think we would still be together as a family. I wouldn’t mind if the government had put an alternative solution in place, I.e for RAA’s to commission specialist therapy directly. However, it appears that the government are just stopping the ASF, without giving the RAA’s any notice & thus they have not had any time to put a back up plan in place. I strongly fear for the families who are in crisis, as they can not wait months for specialist support. A lot of placements will break down because of this. Which will cost the government an awful lot more than the money they think they are saving. I am absolutely appalled at this decision. It is beyond cruel & heartless to have left adoptive families waiting like this for months, knowing full well they were going to stop the funding. The government should be bending over backwards to support Adopters, Kinship Carers, Special Guardianships, not making there lives even harder than they already are. These carers are doing one of the hardest, yet most important jobs in society & are saving the government billions of pounds in the process. The very least these carers deserve is to be properly supported to care for these extremely vulnerable children.

  5. Kate Jack April 1, 2025 at 11:09 am #

    I am incredibly sad that there has still been no update, as a family who really relies on this, I’m incredibly upset and frustrated.

  6. JB April 1, 2025 at 1:29 pm #

    How do I explain to my 5yo daughter who struggles immensly to trust people in a first place, as she has lost so many people in her lifetime, that her play therapist is not coming to school tomorrow and we don’t know if she’s coming back. This will set back any progress by months! I can’t believe this is the avenue where Labour government has decided to save money! Disgraceful comes to mind…