Summary of changes
Updated 29 February 2024
Applies to England
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-care-ofsteds-enforcement-policy/summary-of-changes
February 2024
Added a reference to Ofsted’s code of conduct to emphasise how we expect inspectors to act when carrying out enforcement activity.
March 2022
Reviewed throughout and published in HTML for accessibility. Some information about our internal procedures has been moved to internal-only guidance.
New sections added
- ‘Data protection’
- ‘Our enforcement actions: managers’
Sections updated
‘Safeguarding and child protection concerns’: updated and clarified our role in strategy meetings.
‘How we act on information’: explained how we respond to information including updated guidance on monitoring visits.
‘Compliance notices’: clarified how we check compliance with these.
‘Suspensions’: this has been updated to include suspension of independent fostering agencies, and short breaks.
‘Cancellation and voluntary cancellation’: clarified the processes and consequences of cancellation for providers and for managers
The ‘Prosecution’ section has been reviewed and updated throughout.
‘Unregistered social care providers’: updated and clarified this section.
‘Referrals to the DBS’: added more information about the ‘harm test’ and when we can refer individuals to the DBS.
October 2020
Updated Annex D: surveillance to reflect Ofsted new guidance on directed surveillance.
December 2019
Amended the ‘Visits to potentially unregistered settings and/or managers’ section to clarify our policy and to show it is under review.
October 2018
Updated sections on ‘Written representations under the Care Standards Act 2000’ and ‘Working with other agencies and serious case reviews’. Added a new annex on contacting the DCS after an inadequate judgement.
February 2018
Handbook amended to reflect the revised registration guidance updated earlier this month. Also updated to explain that Ofsted doesn’t do joint visits with other agencies but that we may visit or inspect at the same time as another agency.
October 2017
Minor updates and revisions to sections on written representations, offences, and disqualification.
December 2016
Updates to section 3.4, page 41 and section 3.5, page 47 to reflect changes to our policy when suspending providers’ registration and restricting accommodation.
February 2016
Handbook re-structured for ease of use.
July 2015
Updated for a suite of small changes following a review and in response to feedback from inspectors.
December 2014
This document was updated in December 2014.
October 2014
First published.