Services · Registration and start-up
Changing your registration without destabilising it
Your registration has to describe how the service actually operates. When the service changes and the registration does not, that gap is what an inspector finds.
Free · No email address · Two regulators
Variation, new registration, or just a notification?
Three possible answers, and getting it wrong is expensive in opposite directions. An unnecessary application costs you months. A missed one is a criminal offence — and there is no defence in having applied and started anyway.
Read your certificate before you read this. Most of it turns on what is written there as a condition.
CQC — adults’ services
What counts as a variation, what needs a fresh registration, and what is only a notification.
Current at September 2026. England.
Start here: is the thing you want to change written on your registration as a condition?
The full matrix
| What is changing | Route | The detail |
|---|---|---|
| Add a regulated activity | Variation | Provider application. The registered manager submits a parallel application of their own |
| Remove a regulated activity | Variation | Or cancellation, if removing all of them |
| Add a location | Variation | Plus an additional form for each further location. Not needed if you are already registered for that activity at that address and the condition permits it |
| Move a location | Variation | And if it is also the head office, a change-of-details notification on top |
| Close or sell a location | Variation | Apply to remove it, or cancel the registration |
| Increase beds or capacity | Variation | The bed number is a condition. Exceeding it without a variation is a section 33 offence |
| Provide specialist LD or autism services | Variation | The trap below. Applications from 1 September 2022 carry a routine condition prohibiting these — you must apply to remove it |
| Change service user bands, generally | Notification | Update the statement of purpose and notify within 28 days — except LD and autism, above |
| Change registered manager | Neither, exactly | Notify, then the incoming manager makes their own registration application and the outgoing one applies to cancel. The manager condition itself cannot be varied on application |
| Change nominated individual, directors, partners | Notification | As soon as reasonably practicable |
| Change provider name | Notification | As soon as reasonably practicable |
| Administrative address change only | Notification | Where the location and facilities are unchanged |
| Change legal entity | New registration | Sole trader to limited company, partnership to company. Registration is not transferable. Full application, and the outgoing entity cancels |
| Buy, sell or transfer a business | New registration | New registration for the incoming provider — or add-a-location if they are already registered. CQC links and assesses the two applications together |
Why applications get rejected
From CQC's stated criteria and from what practitioners see. Most of it is avoidable.
- Required supporting documents missing. Since February 2026 CQC returns and rejects applications that are not complete and accurate on receipt, rather than chasing missing items during assessment. It also rejects for out-of-date information, missing requested detail, and documents not relevant to the service or activities.
- An out-of-date form. CQC returns these automatically, and a returned application is not an application — you rejoin the queue at the back.
- Generic template policies not tailored to the actual service type or the activities being applied for.
- Documents that contradict each other — staffing numbers in the business plan that differ from the financial forecast is the classic.
- A statement of purpose that is not service-specific, or that does not match the activities and locations applied for.
- Weak governance and quality assurance evidence — the most common substantive ground, and now with prescribed content requirements including named responsibility for data protection and information security, management of information risks, review arrangements, and staff training.
- Applying too early. CQC's own instruction is to apply only when you are ready for the change to take effect. Applications submitted far ahead are returned with instructions to resubmit nearer the date.
- Not agreeing assessment dates within 28 days of being contacted — the application can be returned or refused on that alone.
- Incomplete fitness evidence for the registered manager and nominated individual.
How long it takes
CQC publishes no service standard for variations. Its own guidance says only that registration is rigorous and can take some time, potentially a few months. Figures circulating in the sector — around ten to sixteen weeks from submission to decision, and rejection rates approaching two in five — come from consultancies rather than from CQC, and should be treated as sector-reported rather than official.
The practical planning point: whatever the number, it runs before you can operate, not alongside. A variation is a lead time on a business decision, not an administrative step to run in parallel with opening. Build it into the programme at the front.
Where to send it
Download the current form from the CQC website and email it to the applications mailbox. Variations do not go through the provider portal — the portal handles a limited set of notification types only. CQC's own pages have at times said different things about this; the portal guidance is the more recent and more specific, and it is the one to follow. If in doubt, email and keep the sent item.
What you must not do before it is granted
| Do not | Because |
|---|---|
| Deliver a regulated activity not on your certificate | Section 10 offence — unregistered activity. £4,000 fixed penalty, or prosecution |
| Operate from a new location, or stay at one after relocating | Same |
| Exceed the bed number in your condition | Section 33 — breach of condition. £4,000 provider, £2,000 manager |
| Provide specialist LD or autism services while the routine condition stands | Same — and notifying a band change does not cure it |
| Trade under a new legal entity | The new entity needs its own registration. Nothing carries across |
| Let a purchaser start providing care before their registration is granted | Unregistered activity, by them, with your name still on the certificate |
There is exactly one situation in which operating without registration is lawful: where an individual provider dies, their personal representative may carry on for up to 28 days — extendable by CQC by up to a year — provided someone is appointed to manage day-to-day operations full time. Nothing else in the scheme works that way.
Ofsted — children’s services
The same three questions, answered against the children’s regulations.
Current at September 2026. England.
A variation is an application to change a condition of registration. So the question is not "is this a big change" — it is "is this thing written on my certificate as a condition?"
Ofsted's published policy names only one condition that always applies to a children's home: the maximum number of children. Beyond that, conditions are drawn from the statement of purpose, and certificates vary. Age range and gender may or may not appear as conditions on yours.
If it is on the certificate → variation, and do not change it until granted. If it is not, but it is in your statement of purpose → notify within 28 days. If you cannot tell → email Ofsted before you act, not after.
The matrix
| What is changing | Route | The detail |
|---|---|---|
| Increase the number of places | Variation | Maximum places is always a condition. Major fee. Never admit above the number before it is granted — not for one night, not in an emergency |
| Decrease the number of places | Variation | Minor fee — one of only three changes that qualify |
| Reduce the range of needs or categories | Variation | Minor fee |
| Add or change a category of care | Variation | Major fee |
| Change age range | Check the certificate | Variation if it is a condition on yours; otherwise a statement of purpose change, notified within 28 days. Do not assume either way |
| Change gender | Check the certificate | Same as age range |
| Move premises — children's home | New registration | Not a variation. New application, new fee, and voluntary cancellation of the old registration. See below |
| Alter, extend or acquire premises — children's home | Notification | Regulation 49(g) — but this is a notification about a property, not permission to use it |
| Add or cease premises — supported accommodation | Notification | Form SC3. 72 hours from first occupancy; 10 working days from ceasing use |
| Add a supported accommodation category | Variation | Or a new registration. You must not operate the new service until registered for it |
| Number of places — supported accommodation | Not a condition | Ofsted applies category conditions and the premises-notification condition. Places do drive the fee band, though — small is 0 to 9, large is 10 or more |
| Change registered manager | Neither | New manager submits SC2 and pays a registration fee. The outgoing manager must personally apply to cancel — the provider cannot do it for them, and failure can attract enforcement |
| Change responsible individual | SC3 | Ofsted issues an amended certificate and tests the new RI's suitability by interview or call |
| Change of legal entity | New registration | SC1. Including a change of company number. See below |
| Statement of purpose change | Notification | Within 28 days |
The two that catch transactions
Fees
Minor fees apply in only three situations. Everything else is a major fee.
| Service | Major | Minor |
|---|---|---|
| Children's home | £910 | £334 |
| Supported accommodation | £910 | £303 |
The minor fee applies only where a children's home or residential family centre reduces its number of places; a children's home reduces its range of categories; or an adoption agency reduces the services it provides. Reduction is cheap. Everything expansionary is a major fee.
How long, and can it be fast-tracked
Ofsted publishes no service standard for variation turnaround. What it does publish is a prioritisation policy for registration applications: priority cases roughly three to six months, non-priority six to eighteen. Its own guidance warns that applications are taking longer than usual and a decision is likely to be several months away. Once the visit and interview have concluded, the regional manager usually grants or refuses within seven working days — but that is the last step, not the wait.
Why applications are refused
- No registered manager in post. The regulations require one. A refusal at manager level is severe in its own right — it can carry disqualification from working in children's homes.
- Safer recruitment failures in the staff files.
- The manager or responsible individual cannot discuss the regulations. Inspectors expect applicants to be intimately acquainted with the statutory framework and to hold their own at a fit person interview. Reading the guide the night before does not survive contact.
- Planning permission missing. C2 use class, or a certificate of lawfulness. Secure it before applying — Ofsted checks planning when assessing a variation, not only at first registration.
- Incomplete or incorrect applications — the single largest cause of avoidable delay, and entirely within your control.
If Ofsted proposes to refuse, it serves a notice of proposal, and you have 28 days from service to make written representations. That is a short window in which to assemble evidence, and it is worth knowing the deadline before you need it.
What must not happen before it is granted
| Do not | Because |
|---|---|
| Admit a child outside the registered age range, where that is a condition | Breach of condition — unlimited fine |
| Admit above the maximum number of places | Same. Maximum places is always a condition. Not for one night, not as a favour, not at a commissioner's urgent request |
| Operate a category of care not on the certificate | Same |
| Accommodate a child at premises not covered by the registration | Operating an unregistered children's home — offence, and within scope of the new civil penalty powers |
| Run a new supported accommodation category before registration for it | Ofsted's guidance is explicit: you must not operate the new service until registered to offer it |
These get treated as paperwork, and they are not
Adding a location. Adding a regulated activity. Changing the registered manager or the nominated individual. Expanding the scope of what you do.
A variation is a regulatory decision about your organisation, and it is assessed like one — governance, operational readiness, whether the service can actually deliver what you are now asking to be registered for.
Submitted casually, a variation invites questions about the parts of the service you were not proposing to change.
If the change has already happened
And the variation has not been submitted, say so when you ring. That is a different and more urgent conversation.
Ask usWhat it is
A variation is assessed, not processed. Three things follow from that.
Prepared, not just filled in
The application is the last step. The work is deciding what you are actually asking for, and whether you are ready to evidence it.
Positioned deliberately
A variation is a chance to demonstrate governance strength rather than simply survive a form.
Continuity protected
Especially on registered manager changes, where the gap between one and the next is the risk.
What it covers, and what it does not
We prepare and support the submission. Timescales are CQC's, not ours, and we will give you a realistic expectation rather than the one you want.
Fees are quoted before any work starts. Nothing on this page is an offer.
Who it is for
Growing providers
Adding locations, or adding regulated activities to an existing registration.
Services changing registered manager
Planned or otherwise, where continuity is the thing to protect.
Anyone whose registration has drifted
From what the service now actually does day to day.
Tell us what is changing
The earlier in the change we see it, the more of it we can protect. Whether it is a new location, a new activity or a new manager, start with a conversation rather than the form.
Text or WhatsApp
07426 919823If it is easier to write it down than say it out loud, send a message.
A variation is a regulatory decision, not paperwork.