Guidance

Social care: Ofsted's enforcement policy

Ofsted's policy on how we regulate children's social care establishments and agencies explains what we may do if a provider is not following the regulations.

Applies to England

Documents

Details

This policy explains how we regulate certain types of children’s social care. It also sets out:

  • our powers under the law
  • what actions we can take if providers are not following the regulations
  • what we may do if we find out about unregistered provision

Updates to this page

Published 15 October 2014
Last updated 30 April 2024 + show all updates
  1. See 'Summary of changes'.

  2. See 'Summary of Changes'.

  3. Updated with information about children’s homes that are also registered by the DfE as independent schools or approved as non-maintained special schools.

  4. Reviewed the content to make it more accessible and user-friendly (no change to our enforcement powers and general approach to regulation). See 'Summary of changes' for details.

  5. First published.

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