There are likely costly consequences of capping the individual limit for assessments and therapy under the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) at £3,000, write the organisations working with affected children in a letter to Bridget Phillipson.
Risks include disruption to placements, children returning to care, and an undermining of both the government-funded adopter recruitment campaign and its drive to increase the number of children looked after in kinship arrangements.
They accuse the DfE of making the decision without consultation with sector organisations or adoptive and kinship families “including your department’s own national reference groups for adoptive parents and kinship carers”.
In addition, the decision is at odds with the government’s manifesto pledge to support kinship and adoption, to ensure that every child has a “loving and secure home”, write the chief executives of charities Adoption UK, Coram, CVAA and Kinship.
The new blow followed relief at the DfE’s eventual confirmation on 1 April that the £50 million pot would continue in 2025/26.
The reason cited by the DfE for the reduction, was that the funding pot needed to be shared among increasing numbers of children.
Today’s letter to Phillipson claims that the decision will have a “direct impact on the futures of thousands of children and young adults” and has already “caused widespread distress and anger amongst affected families and appears economically short-sighted”.
It states that 3,000 children in England are placed in adoptive families each year, with around 5,000 leaving the care system each year when a special guardianship or child arrangements order is made.
“Adopted children and this group of kinship children are almost all care experienced and share a childhood overshadowed by trauma, loss and disruption,” states the letter, adding: “The need for lifelong support is very common. These children have the same potential and deserve the same chance to thrive as every other child.
“In your election manifesto, this government acknowledged that ‘every child should have a loving, secure home’ and promised to “work with local government to support children in care, including through kinship, foster care, and adoption’.
“Despite this, and despite committing to ‘breaking the pernicious link between background and success’, the government’s approach to these children on this issue has so far been marked by delay and disappointment.
“This incoherence is illustrated by the letter from your department to Adoption England just this month calling for sector action and improvements in adopter recruitment, matching and support.
“This ambition was undermined days later by these cuts to support, which will impact each step of the adopter journey.”
The increased demand that would result was “entirely foreseeable”, because they result from “welcome decisions to extend and rename the fund to include kinship families in recent years”, continues the letter.
It concludes with a request, in the run up to the 2025 Spending Review, for Phillipson to “take immediate action to convene organisations like ours to start to work through these challenges together and establish a long-term plan for the future of the ASGSF beyond this year”.
The DfE has been approached for comment.
