Regulatory activity in all types of children’s homes and supported accommodation providers between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025
Updated 11 July 2025
Applies to England
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Introduction
An important part of our work is the regulation of children’s social care settings. At the end of March 2025, there were 5,600 active or suspended children’s social care providers in England. In addition, 153 local authorities provide children’s social care. Most of the active or suspended providers were children’s homes (4,010) and supported accommodation providers (890).
This annual transparency data covers regulatory activity in children’s social care settings, with a focus on children’s homes and supported accommodation.
Types of regulatory activity
We investigate children’s social care settings when we have evidence that there is cause for concern or that they may not be compliant with the regulations that govern their provision of care. In these cases, we take action where appropriate. Actions include, but are not limited to: logging a key line of enquiry for the next inspection, continuing to monitor the case, and bringing forward the next inspection. In more serious cases, enforcement action may take the form of restrictions on accommodation, or suspension or cancellation of the provider.
Providers must notify Ofsted, as the regulator for children’s homes and supported accommodation in England, about certain types of serious incidents that happen to children living with them and what they have done in response. (The list of notifiable incidents differs for children’s homes and supported accommodation.)
By law, all children’s homes must have a registered manager, and all supported accommodation providers must have a registered service manager. Some operate with a manager who is not registered, or with no manager at all. This can affect their inspection judgement.
We assess any information we receive about potential unregistered children’s homes and supported accommodation settings. Most of these cases are opened when we receive information about a placement from the placing local authority (the local authority responsible for finding a suitable place for a child to live), although placing local authorities are not legally obliged to tell Ofsted about these placements.
Children’s homes of all types
Three-month condition in children’s homes of all types
When a children’s home has no immediate intention of operating for at least 3 months, we can impose a condition requiring it to give us 3 months’ notice if it intends to admit a child. This means that we do not have to inspect the setting routinely. As at 31 March 2025, we had imposed this condition on 52 children’s homes (1%). This represents a potential capacity of 210 places. The number of children’s homes subject to the 3-month condition has decreased since last year, when it was 71 (2%).
Compliance, investigation and enforcement
Cases
We recently updated our processes for logging and categorising compliance, investigation and enforcement cases. As part of this change, we introduced new categories in 2023–24 to better reflect the types of cases being encountered. This year is the first full inspection year during which cases have been logged using the new categories. This means that data quality has improved, but this year’s data is not comparable with last year’s publication.
Between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025, we investigated 3,710 cases relating to 2,440 children’s homes of all types. In this period, there were one or more cases logged against 61% of all children’s homes that were active during the year.
Some of these cases fell into the most serious category, ‘child protection concerns’. Between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025, we recorded 510 child protection concerns, relating to 410 children’s homes of all types.
Actions
Of the 3,710 total cases, 2,350 (63%) had one or more actions recorded by the end of March 2025. Table 1 shows the number and type of actions recorded in 2024–25.
Table 1: Number and type of actions recorded in 2024–25 for children’s homes
| Action taken | Number of actions in 2024–25 |
|---|---|
| Continued monitoring by allocated inspector | 720 |
| Other action taken not included in other categories | 680 |
| Key line of enquiry for next inspection | 550 |
| Compliance and enforcement action | 370 |
| Inspection brought forward | 260 |
| Provider-led investigation | 260 |
| Referred to another agency | 210 |
| Monitoring visit | 180 |
| Referred to child protection team in the relevant local authority | 100 |
| Total actions taken | 3,320 |
Note: See Notes for rounding guidelines.
As at 31 March 2025, 37% of the cases had no actions logged, indicating that responses were pending.
Multiple actions can be taken against an individual case, so the total number of actions may add up to more than the total number of cases with actions logged against them.
Enforcement
Between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025, we carried out the following enforcement actions across all children’s homes:
- 75 restrictions of accommodation
- 36 suspensions
- 12 notices of cancellation
In this period, 2 homes received multiple restrictions of accommodation, and 4 homes received more than one suspension.
Of the 31 homes that had received suspensions at some point during the year, 5 have since resigned, 2 have been cancelled, 15 have become active and 9 remained suspended as at 31 March 2025.
Additionally, 360 compliance notices were issued to a total of 150 providers.
Incident notifications
Between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025, we received 42,500 notifications. These came from a total of 3,800 providers.
The most common classification for these, accounting for 57% of all notification reasons from children’s homes, was ‘other incident relating to a child which the registered person considers to be serious’. ‘Other’ notifications cover any incident considered by the registered person to be serious but that does not fit under one of the existing categories. The next highest category was ‘incident requiring police involvement’ (25%). Police call-out notifications are not exclusively related to the child being suspected of committing a crime. Police may be called because a child has gone missing, has been a victim of sexual or criminal exploitation or another crime, or has disclosed a historical safeguarding concern.
Figure 1: A breakdown of the types of events contained in notifications made by children’s homes from 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025
Note: The following categories accounted for less than 1% of all notifications and have not been included in the above chart: referral, death of a child, missing, serious illness or accident, unauthorised contact and no reason listed as at 31 March.
See Notes for rounding guidelines.
View data in an accessible format.
Registered managers
As at 31 March 2025, 740 (19%) children’s homes in England who were active or suspended no longer had a registered manager in post. Last year, the figure was 770 (22%). Of the children’s homes without a registered manager in post as at 31 March 2025, 46% no longer had a manager in post and 54% had a manager in post who was unregistered or not yet fully registered. Last year, 56% of children’s homes without a registered manager had no manager at all in post.
Figure 2: Percentage of active or suspended children’s homes without a registered manager or manager in post by region, as at 31 March 2025
Note: In both maps, a lighter hue indicates a lower percentage.
View data in an accessible format.
Supported accommodation
Compliance, investigation and enforcement
Cases
Between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025, we investigated 560 cases about 410 supported accommodation providers. In this period, there were one or more cases logged against 46% of all supported accommodation providers that were active during the time.
Some of these cases fell into the most serious category, ‘child protection concerns’. Between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025, we recorded 49 child protection concerns, relating to 42 supported accommodation providers.
Actions
Of the 560 total cases, 460 (82%) had one or more actions recorded by the end of March 2025. Table 2 shows the number and type of actions recorded during 2024–25.
Table 2: Number and type of actions recorded in 2024–25 for supported accommodation providers
| Action taken | Number of actions in 2024–25 |
|---|---|
| Continued monitoring by allocated inspector | 190 |
| Key line of enquiry for next inspection | 120 |
| Other action taken not included in other categories | 87 |
| Compliance and enforcement action | 85 |
| Referred to another agency | 37 |
| Monitoring visit | 30 |
| Referred to child protection team in the relevant local authority | 25 |
| Provider-led investigation | 21 |
| Inspection brought forward | 5 |
| Total actions taken | 600 |
Note: See Notes for rounding guidelines.
As at 31 March 2025, 18% of the cases had no actions logged, indicating that responses were pending.
Multiple actions can be taken against an individual case, so the total number of actions may add up to more than the total number of cases with actions logged against them.
Enforcement
Between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025, there were:
- 7 restrictions of accommodation
- 5 suspensions
- 2 notices of cancellation
As at 31 March 2025, of the 5 supported accommodation providers that had received suspensions, 1 had been cancelled, 2 remained suspended and 2 remained active.
Additionally, we issued 57 compliance notices to a total of 22 providers.
Incident notifications
Between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025, we received 4,040 notifications. These came from a total of 490 providers.
The most common classification for these, accounting for 45% of all notification reasons from supported accommodation providers, was ‘other incident relating to a child which the registered person considers to be serious’. The next highest category was ‘incident requiring police involvement’ (37%).
Figure 3: A breakdown of the types of events contained in notifications made by supported accommodation providers from 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025
Note: The category death of a child and no reason listed as at 31 March accounted for less than 1% of all notifications and have not been included in the above chart.
See Notes for rounding guidelines.
View data in an accessible format.
Registered service managers
As at 31 March 2025, 65 (7%) supported accommodation providers who were active or suspended no longer had a registered service manager in post. A small number of the supported accommodation providers without a registered service manager as at 31 March no longer had a manager in post at all (26), accounting for 3% of supported accommodation providers in England.
Figure 4: Percentage of active or suspended supported accommodation providers without a registered manager or manager in post, by region, as at 31 March 2025
Note: A small number of supported accommodation providers (4) are located in Wales. These have been excluded from the above visualisation. In both maps, a lighter hue indicates a lower percentage.
View data in an accessible format.
Unregistered provision between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025
Between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025, we opened 920 cases into potential unregistered children’s homes and supported accommodation settings. In 2024–25, the placing local authority was the source of information for 63% of the cases that we opened.
Of the 920 potentially unregistered opened cases in 2024–25, 30 (3%) did not need to be registered or were used for very short-term temporary placements, and 720 (78%) should have been registered. Settings that have been identified as unregistered settings have received warning letters. As at 31 March, of the 920 cases of potential unregistered settings opened in 2024–25, 54% (500) had been closed.
Regulatory activity in other types of children’s social care providers between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025
We also regulate and register other types of children’s social care provision. Between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025, there was 1 cancellation of an independent fostering agency and 3 suspensions (2 residential family centres and 1 independent fostering agency). During this period, we investigated 440 cases about 270 other provider types.
We also received 150 child protection concerns for other children’s social care providers over the course of the year.
Notes
Data source
The data for regulatory activity in all types of children’s homes and supported accommodation providers between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025 was extracted from Ofsted’s administrative systems on 31 March 2025. Some information relating to this period is received and processed after this date and, as such, is not reflected in this publication.
Our reporting is accurate to the administrative systems that we report from. Errors in recording data and manual data entry may affect the quality of the source data. We make every effort to ensure that the data is produced without any errors.
Supported accommodation
Supported accommodation became a regulated form of provision in April 2023. Supported accommodation providers that applied to register before the deadline were allowed to continue legally operating while their application was processed. Those that missed the registration deadline and continue to operate while awaiting registrations are illegally operating.
Rounding
Numbers in this report are rounded as follows:
- numbers under 100 are not rounded
- numbers between 100 and 1,000 are rounded to 2 significant figures
- numbers over 1,000 are rounded to 3 significant figures
Contacts
If you are a member of the public and have any comments or feedback on this publication, please contact Rebecca Vincent at: socialcaredata@ofsted.gov.uk.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to the following for their contribution to this statistical release: Kathryn Leech.
Glossary
Definitions of terms are in the statistical glossary.
Annex: data tables for figures
This section contains the underlying data in an accessible table format for all figures.
Data for Figure 1: A breakdown of the types of events contained in notifications made by children’s homes from 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025
| Type of event | Percentage |
|---|---|
| Police involvement (10,500) | 25% |
| Allegation or complaint (5,880) | 14% |
| Child protection enquiry (1,200) | 3% |
| Sexual exploitation (560) | 1% |
| Other (24,200) | 57% |
See Figure 1.
Data for Figure 2: Percentage of active or suspended children’s homes without a registered manager or manager in post by region, as at 31 March 2025
| Region | Percentage with no registered manager | Percentage with no manager |
|---|---|---|
| East of England | 24% | 12% |
| East Midlands | 17% | 9% |
| London | 20% | 9% |
| North East, Yorkshire and Humber | 16% | 7% |
| North West | 16% | 7% |
| South East | 23% | 10% |
| South West | 16% | 7% |
| West Midlands | 20% | 10% |
See Figure 2.
Data for Figure 3: A breakdown of the types of events contained in notifications made by supported accommodation providers from 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025
| Type of event | Percentage |
|---|---|
| Police involvement (1,480) | 37% |
| Sexual or criminal exploitation (320) | 8% |
| Child protection enquiry (220) | 5% |
| Allegation or complaint (140) | 3% |
| Referral (29) | 1% |
| Restraint (26) | 1% |
| Other (1,820) | 45% |
See Figure 3.
Data for Figure 4: Percentage of active or suspended supported accommodation providers without a registered manager or manager in post, by region, as at 31 March 2025
| Region | Percentage with no registered service manager | Percentage with no manager |
|---|---|---|
| East Midlands | 3% | 1% |
| East of England | 7% | 2% |
| London | 8% | 4% |
| North East, Yorkshire and Humber | 12% | 4% |
| North West | 9% | 4% |
| South East | 7% | 3% |
| South West | 6% | 1% |
| West Midlands | 7% | 3% |
See Figure 4.