Children's Home Regulation 45 Review: What It Is, What Must Go In It, and Where Providers Go Wrong
The children's home Regulation 45 review is one of the most straightforward compliance requirements in the Children's Homes (England) Regulations 2015 — and one of the most consistently failed at Ofsted inspection. This guide explains exactly what it requires, what a good report contains, and the four failure patterns we see most often.
NVQ Level 5 Health & Social Care Management · Former LA Commissioning Officer · 12 Years in Adult Social Care
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What is a Regulation 45 Review?
Regulation 45 of the Children's Homes (England) Regulations 2015 places a legal duty on the registered person — whether that's a provider organisation or an individual — to conduct a review of the quality of care provided by the home at least once every six months. The registered person then produces a written report of that review and submits it to Ofsted and to any placing local authority whose children are resident in the home. The review must be structured against the seven Quality Standards set out in the Children's Home Quality Standards Regulations 2015: education and employment; health and wellbeing; children's rights; protection from harm; leadership and management; care planning; and positive relationships. Reviews are conducted by the registered person themselves — not by an independent visitor, which is Regulation 44's function. Ofsted's Social Care Common Inspection Framework (SCCIF) references Regulation 45 reports as evidence within the leadership and management judgement: a pattern of thin or unanalytical reports contributes directly to the overall inspection grade. That connection between your internal quality review and your inspection outcome is what makes Regulation 45 compliance commercially significant, not just procedurally required.
It's an internal accountability mechanism. The registered person is required to stand back from day-to-day operations, look across the full period, and make an honest, evidence-based assessment of whether the home is delivering good outcomes for children. The DfE's statutory guidance is clear that this goes beyond describing what the home does — it must examine what difference the care is actually making.
There is no prescribed format or required template. That flexibility is genuinely useful, but it also means providers sometimes produce reports that are far too thin, or that read more like a marketing document than a critical review.
Regulation 44 vs Regulation 45 — the distinction that matters
Regulation 44
Monthly visits by an independent person — someone external to and independent of the home. They inspect the premises, interview children and staff, and produce their own separate report. This is external monitoring carried out on the registered person.
Regulation 45
Six-monthly review by the registered person themselves. This is structured self-evaluation — the provider examining the quality of their own care, drawing on the evidence accumulated over the period, and committing to actions. It's a different document, a different purpose, and the registered person's legal responsibility.
What Must Be Included in a Regulation 45 Report
The legislation doesn't specify a format, but the DfE statutory guidance and Ofsted's published expectations are consistent about the substance. A report that doesn't cover all of these elements is incomplete — and inspectors will say so.
Summary of findings
What the review found across the period — not a narrative of daily operations, but an analytical summary of quality against the quality standards.
Children's views
Evidence of how children's opinions were gathered and what they said. This can include direct quotes, formal feedback summaries, or records from children's meetings.
Views of parents and placing authorities
Input from parents (where appropriate and where contact exists) and from the local authorities placing children in the home.
Staff views
Feedback from staff working in the home. Supervision records, team meeting minutes, and staff surveys are all valid sources.
Analysis of impact on outcomes
Not just what care looks like, but what difference it is making to children's lived experiences, educational progress, health, and emotional wellbeing.
Action plan with timescales
Specific steps the registered person will take, with named leads and realistic deadlines. Vague intentions don't meet the standard.
The Ofsted blog post published in October 2024 made a point we've echoed to every provider we work with: the length of the report doesn't matter, but the quality of the analysis does. A four-page report with genuine critical reflection will satisfy inspectors. A twelve-page document that describes care in uniformly positive terms won't.
How Often Is the Regulation 45 Review Required?
At least once every six months. That means a minimum of two reviews per year, each covering a distinct period of operation. Most providers time them to run April-to-September and October-to-March, aligning with the broader regulatory cycle. But the specific dates matter less than the consistency — reviews that slip by several weeks, or that cover overlapping periods, are a pattern Ofsted notices over multiple inspection cycles.
Providers tell us the six-month window feels generous right up until the moment they're sitting down to write it. The data is scattered across daily logs, incident records, children's feedback forms, staff supervision notes, and Regulation 44 reports. Pulling it together retrospectively takes time the registered manager almost never has spare.
Once submitted, reports must be sent to both Ofsted and to the placing local authority for each looked-after child currently in residence. Ofsted accepts email submissions to [email protected]. Keeping a submission log — with dates, recipients, and acknowledgements — is good practice, because inspectors may ask for evidence of submission during unannounced visits.
Reg 45 reporting without the Sunday-night scramble
CareBids generates your Regulation 45 review template with data from your daily logs and incident records. Book a demo to see how it works.
Common Regulation 45 Failures at Ofsted Inspection
We've reviewed dozens of inspection reports where Regulation 45 non-compliance was cited. These are the four patterns that come up most consistently — and the first two are by far the most common.
No action plan — or a plan with no timescales
The regulation requires the registered person to set out what actions they will take in response to the review's findings. A list of observations without any stated next steps, or an action plan that says 'ongoing' against every item, will draw specific comment from inspectors. Ofsted wants to see measurable commitments.
Children's views not genuinely gathered
The report must draw on opinions from children in the home. Inspectors regularly find that providers have included a single sentence stating children were consulted, with no evidence of what was actually said or how it influenced the review. That isn't consultation — it's a checkbox. Direct quotes, survey summaries, or records of conversations are what demonstrating this properly looks like.
Copy-pasted from the previous cycle
We've seen Regulation 45 reports that are word-for-word identical to the report submitted six months earlier, with only the dates changed. Ofsted can spot this immediately, and it demonstrates the opposite of genuine quality assurance. Each report must reflect the specific period under review.
Confusing Regulation 44 and Regulation 45 content
These are two distinct documents with different legal requirements. Regulation 44 is the independent person's report from their monthly visits. Regulation 45 is your own structured review. Mixing the two — or submitting the independent person's report as your Regulation 45 — is a non-compliance that inspectors flag explicitly.
One thing worth knowing: Ofsted's Social Care Common Inspection Framework (SCCIF) for children's homes explicitly references both Regulation 44 and Regulation 45 as part of its leadership and management judgement. A pattern of weak reports doesn't just create a specific compliance failure — it contributes to the overall leadership grade. That can affect your ability to win local authority placement referrals and framework contracts.
How CareBids Automates Regulation 45 Reporting
We built the Regulation 45 reporting tool because every registered manager we spoke to during development described the same problem: they knew what a good Reg 45 report looked like, but assembling one from scratch every six months — pulling data from multiple sources, structuring it against the quality standards, writing up findings in a way that would satisfy inspection — was genuinely time-consuming and frankly dreadful to do well.
CareBids connects to your daily logs, incident records, and placement data. When a Regulation 45 review period closes, the platform pre-populates a structured template: the quality of care findings are organised by area, children's feedback records are pulled in, incident patterns are summarised, and the action plan section is pre-scaffolded ready for you to complete. You're editing and reviewing — not writing from a blank page.
And this isn't just about saving time (though providers tell us it cuts preparation from several hours down to under thirty minutes). The structured approach also produces better reports — because the data is genuinely there, the analysis is grounded in evidence, and nothing gets missed in the rush.
For children's homes also applying for local authority placements or regional framework agreements, a consistent record of well-evidenced Regulation 45 reports is the kind of compliance signal that commissioners notice. It's referenced in SCCIF outcomes, and placing authorities increasingly check Ofsted inspection summaries before approving referrals. Your Reg 45 reporting is, in a meaningful sense, part of your commercial positioning.
Related Guides for Children's Home Providers
Regulation 45 sits within a broader compliance framework. If you're working through registration or trying to understand how compliance performance affects your ability to win placements and contracts, these resources cover the adjacent ground.
Children's Home Compliance Software
How CareBids handles Ofsted compliance, policy templates, Regulation 45 reporting, and local authority tender support in one platform.
How to Register a Children's Home with Ofsted
The complete step-by-step guide to Ofsted registration — SC1 and SC2 forms, Statement of Purpose, fit person interviews, and why applications get rejected.
Primary legislation and regulatory guidance:
Related Reading
How to Register a Children's Home with Ofsted
Complete step-by-step guide to the SC1 and SC2 forms, Statement of Purpose, fit person interviews, and why applications get rejected.
Children's Home Compliance Software
How CareBids handles Ofsted compliance, SCCIF-aligned policies, Regulation 45 reporting, and LA placement tender writing in one platform.
CQC Outstanding Rating Tender Advantage
How your regulatory rating affects care tender eligibility and scoring — and what commissioners actually check beyond the headline verdict.
Regulation 45 Review — Frequently Asked Questions
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