We wanted to take some time yesterday to reflect on the announcement made by Janet Daby that the fund would continue for a further year. https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/…/hcws908
We also wanted to absorb all that we had heard and seen as part of the debate in Westminster Hall. It was a powerful event.
The funds extension for the year 26/27 is a welcome but small first step in the right direction. We hope it is a small step towards a fund that is fit for purpose and crucially, responds to our children’s needs.
However in failing to reverse the cuts made to the #ASGSF they have failed to help so many children and families in desperate need now. And many needs exacerbated by the cuts made on 14th April 2025.
Only 1% of families answering our survey said the new fair access limit of £3,000 was sufficient to meet their child’s needs, 1%.
Renewing the fund is only meaningful if it is put to good use, otherwise it risks being a waste of money and a wasted opportunity.
It is welcome that they intend to launch a ‘public engagement’ process in the new year. Given the damage already done, and based on the government’s own timeline for change (without evidence base) we are not clear why they are waiting so long. We are not clear why have they made a statement with no details, leaving families already in crisis on yet another knife edge.
Let us be crystal clear –
A ‘public engagement’ is NOT the same as a full, robust, rigorous and independent consultation process. This is concerning.
The timing of this announcement felt like a deliberate attempt to placate the masses and quieten the noise ahead of the debate and beyond it. ‘Let’s offer them a little something and hope that they quieten down and go away.’
We will not be silenced.
We will not go away. Not until our children have what they need and deserve.
Not until:
The cuts made to the ASGSF are reversed. We need the Fair Access limit back to £5,000, the separate specialist assessment fund returned and match funding restored.
A FULL and independent consultation is carried out with families and the sector,
A permanent, ring fenced ASGSF, extended to meet the demand is in place.
Janet Daby announcing one further year of the ASGSF without details isn’t that. It’s a long way from that.
We managed to catch Janet Daby just before the debate. In the very little time she was able to give us we told her that the government needs to do much more than simply extend the fund for one further year. We told her of the harm being done to our children and families through these cuts. We told her about the complexity of need among our children and just how essential specialist therapeutic provision is. We asked if she would be willing to meet with us properly. She told us to listen to her speech at the debate.
We listened to Janet Daby’s speech that offered nothing but the Labour Government line. She seemed bound by collective responsibility and did not respond to any of the powerful statements made by such MPs as Alison Bennett MP, Munira Wilson MP, Clive Jones MP, Bobby Dean MP, Rachel Maskell MP, Tom
Gordon MP and many others.
She isn’t listening to what we and the key organisations in the sector are telling her. She is listening and acting on recommendations to those who toe the same party line.
OUR CONCLUSION
She doesn’t understand the evidence being presented or complexities of our children,
or
She isn’t afforded the necessary strength to act on what she knows, and reverts to repeating the party line rather than advocate for our children.
At the end of the debate when many other MPs took the time to speak with those parents and carers that were in attendance. Janet Daby did not.
She did however pop up quickly for a photo opportunity and then disappeared just as quickly.
The government and Adoption England are refusing to acknowledge our lived reality.
They are refusing to acknowledge and act upon the scale and complexity of the needs among our children.
They do not seek to understand the support that is required. The narrative that love and permanence should be enough has to change.
Our closing message is this:
A one year extension means we know we have at least something for a little longer, but look what it took for us to get it.
It is thanks to the efforts of our community, of specialist providers, of the charities and organisations across the sector and thanks to the MPs that are willing to hold the government to account that we have pressured government to give us this.
We have to keep going.
We will keep fighting for the needs of our children to be heard, understood and met.
They are still being failed by this government.
The longer they do not reverse the cuts made, the more harm is being done.
That is fast becoming unforgivable.