Shanelle Maxwell-Amayigha

It arrives at four o'clock on a Friday. A referral, a bed that has been empty for three weeks, and a placing authority that needs an answer by five. You say yes. Six weeks later two children are absent more often than they are in, a member of staff has resigned, and nowhere in your records is there a document explaining why you believed it would work. That last part is what an inspector will find.

One word currently does most of the work in your commissioning conversations. Good. Outstanding. Requires improvement. Ofsted has proposed removing it. The consultation closed on 28 September. The first changes are due in spring 2027, four grades would become five, and one of the new evaluation areas is something almost no children's home currently evidences. Here is what was proposed, and what it would mean for yours.

You have found a house. You have a name for the company. You have spoken to a broker about funding, and somebody has told you that Ofsted registration takes about six months. Then nothing happens for a year. This is the part nobody warns you about. The expensive problem in opening a residential children's home is rarely refusal. It is delay, with the rent going out every month and no children in the house. Most of that delay is avoidable, and almost all of it is created in the first few...