The Property - Identify and Enquire
– Identify Property
– Can you get planning permission?
– Can you get insurance
Ofsted registration process can take up to 16 weeks.
1. A site visit is undertaken – is the property fit for purpose?:
2. ‘Fit Person’s interviews’ (Manager and Responsible Individual):
A set of questions is completed and then formal interviews held. During the interview process previous work history/inspections will be discussed in detail, as well as understanding of practice (including SOP), policies, procedures and regulations.
Service |
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Initial site visit / consultancy: to look at the suitability of the property home; with report/ action plan. |
Reviewing key paperwork: – Statement of purpose – Children’s guide – Locality risk assessment – Business plan – Financial forecast – Mandatory policies and procedures – Staff handbook (If you do not have the above – we can produce these for you). |
Manager and Responsible Individual recruitment – advice and support, including: – Reparation of job specification – Preparation of interview questions and scoring sheets – Shortlisting – Preparation of offer letter – Safer recruitment checks – Support with employment contract |
Attendance at interview |
Advice and support pre-submission of Ofsted registration application. – Include review of application form |
Pre-registration inspection visit audit; this held before Ofsted inspector is due to visit the home. |
Review and support with Fit Person Questionnaire and Interview |
Placement and referrals: – Guide to website development – Advice on marketing material – Advice generating referrals – Guidance on E-Marketing – Guide to placement portals and networks |
Supervision of RI and/or Registered Manager |
Use Class C2 (Residential Institutions) of the above Order reads as follows:
A material change of use from class C3 to C2 amounts to development requiring planning permission. There is therefore a potential requirement for planning permission to use a dwelling house as a children’s home.
The starting point is to first establish as a matter of fact and degree, whether such a use would constitute a change of use from C3 to C2.
The issue largely centres on whether or not the children are in themselves capable of living together as a single household.
Class C3 (b) of the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order as amended refers to “use as a dwelling house by not more than six residents living together as a single household, (including a household where care is provided for residents).” If a children’s home was being run on this basis, with children being looked after by a permanent occupant of the dwelling, there would be no requirement for planning permission.
However, the matter is less clear when the care is based on shift patterns. In the North Devon District Council [2003] case Justice Collins made the point that children “need to be looked after. They cannot run a house. They cannot be expected to deal with all the matters that go to running a home … children are regarded as needing fulltime care from an adult, someone to look after them, someone to run their lives for them and someone to make sure that the household operates as it should.” The North Devon judgement confirms that it is unrealistic to expect children to look after themselves in a single household. It also clarified that carers who provided 24 hour care but were not resident could not be regarded as living together in a household.
The concept of living together as a household means that a proper functioning household must exist and children and carer must reside in the premises. In such circumstances, the use cannot therefore be considered to fall within Class C3 (b). A children’s home run on shift patterns could not be considered to fall within Class C3 (a), because clearly, this is not occupation of a dwelling house by a single person or people living together as a family.
Children’s homes based on shift patterns would not be considered to fall into these criteria either. Following an assessment of case law and an Inspector’s decision of 2010 at Stockport, use of premises as a children’s home will generally be held to fall within Class C2 of the Order (Residential institutions).
If planning permission is required, what are the issues?
The key issues are however the numbers of residents involved, whether or not staff work shift patterns or have a permanent residence at the site and the materiality in planning terms of any change of use. The starting point will be to consider:
Ultimately it will remain a matter of planning judgement but this should be the start of a sequence of considerations to help establish whether or not a change in the character of a dwelling-house has occurred, for example, through increased coming and goings and disturbance.
Check List:
Fitness of Property (once you have obtained planning/exemption from planning):
Appendix