Apply to register a supported accommodation service

Question 1

Who needs to fill in the form

Accepted Answer

The person who needs to fill in the form depends on the type of provider you are.

Organisations, including limited liability partnerships

To fill out the form, you must be in one of the following roles, or be authorised by someone in one of the following roles:

a director acting for the company
an individual performing the same or similar functions as a director
a partner
a trustee, director or chairperson acting for a charity or statutory body
a chairperson or committee member acting for a committee

Partnerships not registered as limited liability partnerships

To fill out the form, you must be one of the partners acting on behalf of all the partners in the partnership.

Individual providers

If you are an individual provider, you must fill out the form yourself. If you are a group of individuals (not operating as a partnership or company), one of those individuals must complete the form.

Question 2

Information you will need to provide

Accepted Answer

We will ask for information about the supported accommodation service you want to register with Ofsted, and those who will be associated with your service.

You will be asked for:

your company’s registration details (which must match the details recorded by Companies House)
your unique reference number (URN) if you have applied to register, or been registered, with Ofsted previously for any type of service
previous applications and registrations details for children social services
previous applications and registrations details for adult social services
information about the supported accommodation service you want to register
information about the categories of accommodation you want to register
details of your premises and whether they are ready to operate
the Care Quality Commission (CQC) registration number, if you hold a registration with CQC
individuals you want to link to the registration, such as managers
an original Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) certificate for everyone who needs one
details of a nominated individual who can submit their Apply to be associated with children’s social care service (SC2) form as part of the application

The form asks for a lot of information. It can take several hours to complete. Gather everything you need before you start.

You can save your progress and come back to it later if you don’t have all the information.

Previous Ofsted applications and registrations

If you’ve applied to register with Ofsted before, for any social care or early years provision, we will need your URN.

Question 3

Unique reference number

Accepted Answer

Your URN will be on correspondence regarding the relevant registration, and will follow a certain format:

For social care registrations before 2015, the URN starts with SC and has 6 digits, for example SC123456
For social care and early years registrations from 2015, the URN is 7 digits, for example 1234567
For early years registration before 2015, the URN starts with EY and has 6 digits, for example EY123456

We also need the URN of:

any holding companies registered with Ofsted
any registered services in which you have a financial interest

Holding company and subsidiary details

If you are a holding company with subsidiaries registered with Ofsted, you will need to tell us the name, trading start date, URN, address and contact details for each subsidiary.

If your organisation is a subsidiary of a holding company, you must tell us the holding company’s name, trading start date, registered company number (or charity number, if applicable), address, and contact details. You must tell us about all the other subsidiaries of your holding company.

You must also give us the accounts for the last 2 years for your holding company and all its subsidiaries. You cannot upload these to the form. Email them to sc.suppacc@ofsted.gov.uk quoting ‘Supported accommodation service’ and the reference number in the subject line.

Ofsted must know about all of your previous applications and registrations for any children’s social care services and adult social care services. You will be asked if you have:

made a previous application
had a previous application refused
been registered or licensed to run a service
had a registration cancelled

If you answer yes to any of those questions, we will request further information.

The information we need about previous applications includes the URN. If you do not have a URN for that service (for example, adult social care services), then you will need to tell us about the type of service, dates of application, reason for the refusal (if relevant) and which public authority dealt with the application.

We also need to know who you registered with, how long the registration was for and the type of service. If you have had a registration cancelled, you need to provide either the URN or details about the service, including dates of registration and why the registration was cancelled.

Question 4

Documents required for your application

Accepted Answer

Your application will not be accepted unless you have provided all the documents that we require, and all the people who need to provide an Apply to be associated with a children’s social care service SC2 form have done so.

With the SC1 form, you will need to provide:

your statement of purpose
evidence of planning permission, where applicable
your certificate of insurance or written confirmation that insurance will be provided
your young person’s guide
your missing child policy
your safeguarding policy
your behaviour management policy
your contingency plan policy
your complaints procedure
your business plan
a cashflow forecast
if you are registering as a company, the last 2 annual reports and accounts, including annual reports for any holding company or subsidiaries (if available)
your charitable objects, if applicable
a copy of your agreement or legal proof of a partnership (for applications from partnerships)

When you are completing the SC1 form or SC2 form, you are required to disclose other information that the Care Standards Act 2000 identifies as relevant to your application. We will also ask to see other policies at different stages of the process, for example during a site visit.

Statement of purpose

You must have a unique statement of purpose for each supported accommodation service that you are applying to register. Its contents will vary according to the categories of accommodation that you intend to operate.

The statement of purpose should meet the requirements of the Supported Accommodation (England) Regulations 2023, setting out how it can meet needs of prospective children who may be accommodated in the service, and how it is set up and equipped to meet those needs.

It must include the categories of supported accommodation service you plan to provide and a description of the accommodation, including how it meets the accommodation standard. You do not need to list the addresses of the accommodation in the statement of purpose.

We will take the quality of the statement of purpose into account when making our decision about your fitness to practise.

Young person’s guide

The young person’s guide to your service must comply with the requirements of the Supported Accommodation (England) Regulations 2023. It must also be suitable and easy to understand for the children you look after. It must include information about:

the support and accommodation you will provide
advocacy and how children may access it
how children can make complaints about the support and accommodation they get
any specific services available to support children’s individual needs

Premises

All supported accommodation services must have a physical address linked to the application.

Proving your premises are fit for purpose

You must prove to Ofsted that the premises you propose to use are fit for purpose and suitable for those you intend to provide a service for. You must show us that you have assessed and managed any risks associated with the buildings. You will demonstrate this through a health and safety assessment and risk management plan.

We will ask about your service, including office details. We need to know about your premises, including:

the category of the accommodation that you are offering, whether single occupancy, shared accommodation (ring-fenced or non-ring-fenced) or private residential accommodation, such as supported lodgings
the addresses of all your premises, including the addresses of all your accommodation hosted in private residences, such as supported lodgings
the maximum number of children you can accommodate in the premises and whether the accommodation is single sex

You will also be expected to confirm that:

your premises are ready to meet the needs of children according to your statement of purpose, including the access needs of the children who will live there
you have carried out location assessments for each premises
you have checked with your local authority whether planning permission is required for your proposed premises and, if necessary, obtained the appropriate approval

Statement about your premises

Providers must state on their SC1 form that the premises being used for supported accommodation can be used in accordance with their statement of purpose, without the need for planning permission, building works or conversion.

Certificate of insurance

You must get a certificate of insurance for death, injury, public liability, damage or other loss before your service starts to operate.

We appreciate that some insurers will not provide this until registration is granted. In this case, you must give us written confirmation that you will have a certificate of insurance before you start to operate. If the name and address of the service are not included on the certificate, you must prove that it is covered before you start to operate.

Policies

You must write your policies to comply with the requirements of the Supported Accommodation (England) Regulations 2023.

It is important that the policies you have reflect your statement of purpose and match the needs of the children you intend to accommodate. Your policies should include:

Missing child policy

This policy should include guidance for how you will help children to understand the risks and dangers involved in going missing and making them aware of how to seek help if they do go missing. The policy should set out how staff should follow local area protocols if children go missing and how to support them on their return.

Safeguarding policy

Your policy should reflect local authority protocols for keeping children safe. It should explain how to work with the child’s accommodating authority if there are safeguarding concerns.

It must also explain:

who is responsible for safeguarding in your organisation
who manages any concerns raised about the nominated safeguarding lead
what happens if someone makes an allegation against a member of staff
what action you will take if a child needs protection

Behaviour management policy

This policy explains how the service supports children’s behaviour. It may include information about:

how appropriate behaviour is to be promoted in the service
the service’s approach to any use of restraint, which must reflect the requirements of the Supported Accommodation (England) Regulations 2023
what staff do if they have concerns about a child’s safety or risk of exploitation

Complaints policy

This policy should explain how:

staff respond to complaints from children and adults
complaints are investigated and how long this takes
people can escalate a complaint if they are not happy with the outcome
children are involved in the complaints process
children can contact someone outside the supported accommodation service, if they want to raise a concern

Contingency plan policy

You must have a policy that will be implemented if your service closes. This must meet the requirements set out in the Supported Accommodation (England) Regulations 2023 and include how:

disruption to children’s lives is kept to a minimum
records are appropriately transferred
children are kept informed about their future support and accommodation
alternative accommodation will be identified and provided

Question 5

Evidence of financial viability

Accepted Answer

Unless you are applying from a local authority or a health authority, you must include with your application:

your business plan
your cashflow forecast
your last 2 annual reports, including reports for any holding company and any subsidiaries
your last 2 annual accounts

If you are a type of trust, other than an NHS trust, we need your latest annual accounts, but you do not have to provide all the above. Instead, you can provide in writing from the local authority:

assurance that it is content that the trust is financially viable
details of how the local authority will review the trust’s ongoing performance, including its finances

Business plan

As a minimum, the business plan should cover:

background information
a marketing plan
a financial plan
an operational plan that includes:
- evidence that you have a service manager and enough staff to support the number of children you initially intend to accommodate
- a recruitment plan to support an increase in the number of children you accommodate
- information about how you will deal with staff turnover
- information about how you will recruit and train staff to meet children’s changing needs

Cashflow forecast

Your cash-flow forecast should estimate the projected monthly income and expenditure for the first 12 months of operation. This is simply a summary of the money that is expected to be paid into and out of the supported accommodation service, in cash terms, over the period. This is usually broken up into a month-by-month forecast.

Annual reports and accounts

If you are registered with Companies House, you need to supply us with your annual reports and accounts. If you have filed 2 or more years of reports and accounts, you will need to upload the last 2 years of these. If you have only filed one set of reports and accounts, you only need to upload that set. You will be asked to upload reports and accounts in 2 separate files for each year.

Where applicable, you should also include the annual reports for the holding company and any subsidiaries of that holding company.

If you are not registered with Companies House, you do not need to upload any reports and accounts.

New companies do not need to submit annual reports or accounts.

If relevant, you should provide a copy of any partnership agreement and any charitable purposes, as set out by the Charities Commission.

Fees

You must pay a children’s social care registration fee as part of your application. Once you have submitted your application and we have all the documents to process it, we will send you an acknowledgement email and advise you to pay your fee. This fee is non-refundable.

The fee for registering your service depends on the number of premises you provide for children to live in. Fees are set by the Department for Education (DfE) and are reviewed and updated every year.

You must also pay a registration fee for each application for a registered service manager, including if the registered service manager changes during the application process. This applies to applications for registered service managers for both new and existing supported accommodation services.

When you apply for a new registration, we always check whether you owe us fees from any previous registrations. We will consider any outstanding fees when assessing your fitness, your integrity and your financial viability to provide a new supported accommodation service.

Once your supported accommodation service is registered, you must pay a children’s social care annual fee.

Question 6

Recommended document file size and formats

Accepted Answer

You can upload documents in the following formats:

PDF
Microsoft Word (.docx)
Excel (.xlsx)
PowerPoint (.pptx)
image file (.jpeg or .png)
OpenDocument formats for a word processing document (.odt), a spreadsheet (.ods) or a presentation (.odp)

Documents must not be more than 2 MB in size.

If you need to reduce the size of your documents, try to:

reduce the size of images before putting them in a document
remove any unnecessary images
save a Word document as the latest version of Word or as a PDF document
save a PDF document to the smallest file option

If you are unable to upload any documents with your application due to the format or size, send them via email to sc.suppacc@ofsted.gov.uk. Provide your name and application reference number. Upload a blank Word page to your application and include the date you emailed the documents to Ofsted and the comment ‘Document emailed to sc.suppacc@ofsted.gov.uk’.

Question 7

Registration visit and interviews

Accepted Answer

As part of the registration process, we will need to see evidence that your proposed service meets the regulations and standards. We will visit a sample of your accommodation to assess the premises and the services that you intend to offer. We will also interview all those associated with your application. An inspector will contact you to discuss the premises that we will visit and whether any reasonable adjustments are required.

Documents required during inspector’s visit

Before or during the visit, the inspector will ask for specific documents that were not part of your original application. We ask for these to check whether you are ready to operate. You will only have this information, such as staff member details, after we accept your application. We are unlikely to make a decision about your registration without this information. It helps Ofsted judge how well you can care for children and keep them safe.

We will always ask for the following information during the visit. Inspectors will tell you before they visit if they expect anything else:

your original birth certificate for your identity when you were born
original certified documents relating to each name change you have had since birth
proof of your address and photographic evidence of your identity, for example a driving licence
your qualification documents
the original DBS certificate for the manager and nominated individual

If you have changed your name, Ofsted will want to see a clear audit trail of those changes and your original birth certificate.

This is an important part of our safeguarding role. If it will be difficult for you to provide original documents, you must tell us as soon as possible so that we can help you resolve the problem.

Staffing and recruitment

We will look at your staffing list and rota to see that you have enough staff with the right experience and qualifications to provide the service from the start of registration. We will ask to see some personnel files so we can check your recruitment practice. We do not expect a full staff team to be in place, but there must be enough staff for your service to open and be ready to accept your first child.

You must have available all recruitment records for the staff you have recruited before the registration visit, including those of the proposed manager and the nominated individual. If you normally hold these records elsewhere, you must arrange for them to be available at the registration visit.

Training and development

You should have a training and development plan ready that outlines:

staff induction – how new staff are introduced to your service, its policies, and their roles
supervision arrangements – how staff will be supported, monitored, and guided in their work

Health and safety

You will need to show the inspector your health and safety risk assessment, management plan and arrangements for protection from fire and other emergencies; these must be completed by a suitable person.

Business development plan

We will look at and discuss your business development plan, including your contingencies for recruitment and managing staff vacancies.

Record keeping systems

You will need to provide examples of any paper-based or electronic systems that you intend to use to record children’s information and experiences.

Registration visit

The inspector will:

ask whether any reasonable adjustments are required before each interview and visit
visit the supported accommodation service including a sample of the accommodation
read and discuss, as necessary, documentation you have provided
interview people in certain roles of responsibility
assess and evaluate all the information we have gathered

After the visit and interviews, the inspector will go over with you:

a summary of the evidence that they have collected
a summary of the proposed conditions of registration
what happens next
whether you need to submit any more information or further interviews are required

Registration interviews

Interviews and visits may take place on different days. We will arrange them with each individual concerned. Inspectors will usually interview both the proposed registered service manager and the appointed nominated individual, even if the nominated individual has been interviewed by us before. We may also interview any directors, as necessary.

Interviews are an opportunity for you to demonstrate your skills, expertise and knowledge for your role. The interview will draw out your experience and values to see how you will use these to improve outcomes for children and provide them with a suitable and safe place to stay.

Nominated individuals’ interviews

The interview will cover the nominated individual’s knowledge and understanding of:

We will explore and assess how they will exercise their responsibilities, for example how they will:

support and challenge the registered service manager and provider to promote best outcomes for children
support the registered service manager to maintain the safety and high standard of all accommodation provided
be available for Ofsted to contact them when necessary
inform and discuss with Ofsted any referrals made under the ‘Prevent’ duty
be available for feedback on or after an inspection
inform Ofsted when the registered service manager is going to be absent for more than 28 days or leaves
inform Ofsted when accommodating a child for the first time in any premises that is not already part of the supported accommodation registration

If an individual has applied to be the nominated individual and the registered service manager, they will have one interview where their capacity, skills and understanding to carry out both roles will be explored. They must demonstrate that they have considered the impact on the service of them carrying out both roles, including any challenges to overseeing the quality of service being provided.

Service managers’ experience

The service manager must have at least 2 years’ experience of working in a position relevant to the residential support of children or adults. Experience must:

have been gained within a 5-year period before the date of their registered service manager application
be relevant to the residential support of children, but it does not have to be gained in residential support

We may consider experience working in other areas of the children’s or adult care sectors, including charities, residential further education colleges, or as a practitioner or manager in a local authority.

We will ask the service manager to demonstrate how their experience is transferable to the role of registered service manager and will enable them to support the delivery and continuing development of a high-quality supported accommodation service.

Service managers’ interviews

The service manager must demonstrate in their application and interview that they have essential skills needed to develop the leadership and management of supported accommodation settings, such that the settings have the capacity and capability to meet the quality standards for a supported accommodation service.

Service managers will be asked about their leadership and management skills including how they will:

manage the relevant roles and responsibilities assigned to staff by them or another registered person in relation to protecting children
develop the leadership and management of each category of accommodation to meet the quality standards set out and use quality assurance systems to drive improvement
understand and implement the statement of purpose for the service
evaluate outcomes for children
meet the Supported Accommodation (England) Regulations 2023 and the quality standards for the needs of children
ensure that the effectiveness of child protection policies is kept under review

Service managers will be asked to demonstrate how they will provide leadership that helps the service to:

safeguard children and take appropriate action to protect them
understand and manage risk
identify and act upon signs that a child is at risk of abuse, neglect, exploitation or any other harm
work collaboratively with other professionals and agencies, and share information when it is needed to keep children safe
support children to maintain appropriate and safe relationships with their family, friends and other people who are important to them
support children to identify, access and receive their entitlements in a manner that helps them to learn to do this independently in the future

We will ask service managers to demonstrate how they support staff and carry on the service to:

understand effective practice in responding to the needs of looked after children and care leavers aged 16 and 17, including the local authority statutory duties to children and care leavers, and how supported accommodation settings are required to support these
build relationships with children and take their views into account about the specific support they need to live independently, including managing their finances and maintaining a tenancy
understand the importance of strong and meaningful relationships for 16- and 17-year-old looked after children and care leavers
manage child development and psychologically informed practices such as trauma, childhood experiences, attachment theory, adolescent behaviours and emotional well-being, positive and relationships-based approaches to behaviour support for children
ensure that individual young people are not subject to discrimination, marginalisation or bullying from their peers
ensure that staff have what they need to provide high-quality support for children accommodated by the service, including for their cultural, age-related and developmental needs
encourage staff to work effectively together to support children to stay safe and receive the right support when they need it, for example in relation to their health, well-being and education
take part in strategic multi-agency working to produce and deliver a plan for support that meets all the needs of the child, and make sure the agreed transitional plan is followed so that the child is supported when leaving the care system

Question 8

Changes to your application

Accepted Answer

During the registration process, as a provider, you must tell us straight away if there are changes to any of the details in your application.

If you want to make changes to your application before we have granted registration, you must write to tell us about changes to:

the person who is applying to be the provider, nominated individual or registered service manager
the name or address of the proposed provider, nominated individual or registered service manager
the members of a partnership
a director or any other person who has submitted a SC2 form
the conditions that you are applying to register

If these changes involve a new person in one of the above roles, they will need to fill in an SC2 form. If they do not do this within 12 weeks of you paying your registration fee, we may write to you to tell you that your application has been closed because we have been unable to process it without the relevant information.

Question 9

What happens next

Accepted Answer

When you apply to register a supported accommodation service, you will get a submission reference number. This is 14 characters and only includes numbers, hyphens and uppercase letters, for example ABCD-1234-1234. This reference number will be on the email sent to you confirming that your application has been accepted.

All registered service managers, nominated individuals, directors or partners linked to the supported accommodation service must tell Ofsted about themselves separately by completing an SC2 form. You will need to provide them with your submission reference number so they can complete their application forms. Your application to register a supported accommodation service is not complete until all application forms are completed. We will get in touch if we have any questions.

Question 10

Questions about your application

Accepted Answer

We know that your application is very important to you, and sometimes you want to speak to us to ask us for an update.

If you have questions and are unable to find the answers on the supported accommodation guidance pages at the start of your application, you can contact us at sc.suppacc@ofsted.gov.uk. The subject line must say ‘Social care application’. Provide your full name and submission reference number for someone to contact you.

Once we have sent your application to our regional team, we will speak to you to let you know how to contact us and the next steps. An inspector will be allocated to your application.

You are responsible for supplying us with full, correct and suitable information to support your application.

It is an offence under the Care Standards Act 2000 to provide a false or misleading statement in an application.