Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund Preliminary Market Engagement Notice

The Adoption Support Fund (ASF) was launched in 2015 and expanded to include Special Guardianship in 2016, becoming the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) in 2023.

The ASGSF aims to support adoptive and special guardianship order children to receive the therapeutic services they have been assessed as needing. This is so they can recover from their early childhood experiences, ultimately to improve their short- and long-term outcomes.

We are seeking a Delivery Partner (DP) to liaise with Local Authorities (LAs) and Regional Adoption Agencies (RAAs) to deliver the ASGSF service. All applications come through a portal and the DP will have to process and approve these applications as per the terms and conditions of the contract and the current scope and eligibility for the ASGSF.

The DP is responsible for:

Fund Management, Management Reporting and Data Requests, Managing Digital Solutions, and payment of grant funding for approved applications to LA/RAAs.

Grant funding

The DP will administer grant funding on behalf of the DfE. After applications are approved, service providers will invoice the relevant LA or RAA once the service starts. The LA/RAA will in turn invoice the DP. To cover the costs, a profiled amount will be transferred to the DP in advance based on a pre-agreed grant funding agreement between the DfE and DP.

Please note, all information in this notice will be subject to ministerial agreement and internal approval.