The 2025-26 financial year has brought significant changes to the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) budget, changes that carry profound consequences for adoptive families and those caring for children through special guardianship or kinship arrangements. While the overall pot remains at £50 million, the Government has slashed the maximum per-child allocation, triggering waves of concern across the sector. This article examines what this means for those looking to adopt, explores the broader implications, and outlines steps families can take moving forward.
The 2025-26 financial year has brought significant changes to the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) budget, changes that carry profound consequences for adoptive families and those caring for children through special guardianship or kinship arrangements. While the overall pot remains at £50 million, the Government has slashed the maximum per-child allocation, triggering waves of concern across the sector. This article examines what this means for those looking to adopt, explores the broader implications, and outlines steps families can take moving forward.
What does it mean for those looking to adopt?
At first glance, the continuation of the ASGSF budget may appear reassuring: the Government reaffirmed a £50 million allocation for 2025–26, mirroring previous years. However, beneath that headline lies a far less comforting picture: the per-child support limit has been slashed from £5,000 down to £3,000 per year.
Not only that, but the previously separate allowance for specialist assessments, once capped at £2,500, has been withdrawn. All assessment costs must now fit within the £3,000 limit. Compounding this, provisions for match funding in exceptional cases (previously permitting the Fund to contribute 50% above limits, up to £30,000) have been abolished. Finally, transitional funding arrangements that allowed packages to span financial years have ended.
In practical terms, families, especially those caring for adoptive children with complex needs, are now grappling with much tighter resources. A diagnostic assessment costing, say, £2,500 leaves only £500 for actual therapeutic intervention. Waiting lists may stretch longer, and children may lose momentum in treatment or face interruptions that could destabilise progress.
Reduced access to therapy funding and therapy for adoptive children
Reducing the fair access limit drastically restricts the volume and duration of therapy funding, and risks reducing the depth of support available to children with trauma. Complex cases often require sustained intervention, monthly therapy, attachment work, life-story work, not just short bursts or one-off sessions.
Charities and professionals have sounded the alarm, with Adoption UK warning that cuts are both “morally and economically nonsensical,” increasing the risk that families may break down and children return to care. These are not abstract risks: 38% of adoptive families were already at or near crisis point in 2023, up from 22% the year before.
Dr Leslie Ironside, a consultant child and adolescent psychotherapist, emphasises that disrupting therapeutic relationships causes severe blows to children already coping with trauma. Building trust with a therapist takes time; disruptions can cause regression and emotional instability.
Pressure on local authorities and regional adoption agencies
Local authorities and regional adoption agencies must absorb the burden of longer wait times, amended applications, and families in crisis. Many applications that exceeded the new £3,000 limit are being returned, requiring re-submission under the tighter regime. This causes delays and uncertainty, exactly what support ought to prevent.
The cost of insufficient support isn’t limited to emotional distress. Long-term risks include poorer educational outcomes, higher rates of criminal justice involvement, and increased mental health challenges, all of which is arguably more expensive to address later.
Despite the bleak picture, there are several routes families and professionals can explore.
- Appeal and engage in local decision-making: Even without external match-funding, families should still ensure they receive full entitlement under the new terms. If a therapy funding decision seems inadequate, families can follow their local authority’s appeal process. Kinship’s guidance recommends prompt communication upon receiving decisions so that appeals happen within the recommended 28-day window.
- Amplify advocacy and sector pressure: Many support organisations are mobilising campaigns: surveys, petitions, open letters to MPs, and urging local action. Speaking up, sharing experiences, and contributing feedback can shape future spending reviews.Kinship has written to the Secretary of State to urge reconsideration. They argue that reducing per-child funding may undermine the broader strategy to increase support to kinship families
- Prepare now for longer-term reforms: Spending review decisions beyond March 2026 will determine whether the AFGSF budget returns to a healthier footing.
- Use local or third-sector alternatives: While waiting for policy change, families might need to access therapy for adoptive children beyond the ASGSF. This may include charitable grants, local mental health services, or volunteer-led support groups. Adoption UK, Adoption England, and other charities offer advice or signposting for families who need assistance.
- Keep continuity of care where possible: Given the damage caused by disrupted therapeutic relationships, families and practitioners should work to avoid gaps in therapy where possible. This may require creative scheduling, drawing on existing local providers, and ensuring any new applications align exactly with new limits in order to minimise breakdowns mid-support.
Can families appeal a funding decision?
Families can appeal a funding decision made under the ASGSF if they believe that the support offered does not meet their child’s needs. When a local authority or regional adoption agency assesses a family’s situation and applies to the Fund, a decision is then made regarding the type and level of therapeutic support approved. If a family receives notice that the application has been declined in part, capped at a lower amount, or does not include the specific intervention needed, they are entitled to challenge that outcome.
The first step in the process is to raise the concern directly with the local authority or regional adoption agency, as these bodies are responsible for submitting the application and managing correspondence with the Department for Education. Each authority has an internal complaints and appeals procedure, and families are generally expected to submit their appeal within a set timeframe, generally within 28 days of receiving the funding decision.
In practice, an appeal usually involves explaining why the original decision fails to meet the child’s therapeutic needs, often supported by professional reports, evidence from therapists, or a history of the child’s previous interventions. The local authority or regional adoption agency will then review the case and decide whether to amend the application or maintain the original decision. If, after this stage, the family remains dissatisfied, they may be able to escalate the matter further. Options include taking the complaint to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, which can review whether the local authority has acted fairly and lawfully, or, where there are wider legal or human rights concerns, seeking advice from a solicitor specialising in family or public law.
While there is no guarantee that appealing will secure additional funding, it is an important safeguard. Appeals not only give families the chance to secure the support their children need, but they also help demonstrate to policymakers the level of unmet demand within the adoption and guardianship community. For this reason, organisations such as Adoption UK and Kinship strongly encourage families to use the appeals process where appropriate, both to advocate for their own children and to highlight systemic shortfalls in the way support is delivered.
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