Responsible Individual (Ofsted): A Responsible Individual is the person an organisation nominates to Ofsted as accountable for supervising the management of a children’s home, and they are assessed by Ofsted for their suitability for that role.
The role is the children’s services counterpart to a Nominated Individual on the CQC side, and it carries real accountability rather than being a signature on a form.
Ofsted interviews the Responsible Individual as part of registration and expects them to understand the home’s model of care, its safeguarding arrangements, and how they will oversee the registered manager. Someone who cannot answer for how the home will actually operate is a problem for the application.
Where a Responsible Individual is accountable for more than one home, Ofsted will want to know how they can realistically oversee all of them.