HearthAnnex A for children's homes: every field, and where the number comes from
Annex A is the structured information request Ofsted makes at inspection. Homes that treat it as a last-minute form have a bad week; homes whose records generate it barely notice. Here's what's in it and how to be the second kind.
By Mason Hughes, 7 years in children's residential care · Updated
What Annex A actually is
Annex A is Ofsted’s standard information request, made under section 31 of the Care Standards Act 2000. At inspection you complete and return it electronically: a structured set of data about the children in your home, your staff, and regulatory activity since the last visit. Inspectors use it to generate lines of enquiry before they walk through the door: patterns in incidents, missing episodes, restraint, complaints, staffing.
The trap is treating it as paperwork. Its numbers must reconcile with your daily logs, incident records and staffing records. An Annex A that says three missing episodes when the daily logs show five is a straight line to a difficult conversation about the accuracy of your records.
What it covers: the working checklist
Keep these current and Annex A becomes an export, not a project:
- The children: who is placed, ages, placing authorities, admission dates, plans in place.
- Incidents and safeguarding: safeguarding concerns and referrals, child protection involvement, allegations against staff and their outcomes.
- Missing episodes: each episode, duration, return interviews, patterns and what you changed because of them.
- Physical intervention: every use of restraint, with the record showing de-escalation attempted and the child’s view afterwards.
- Complaints: from children and others, with outcomes and what the home learned.
- Staffing: the team, qualifications, vacancies, turnover, agency use, supervision and training currency.
- Regulatory activity: notifications made (Reg 40), Regulation 44 visits and actions arising, your Reg 45 quality of care review.
Every field, and where the number comes from
The reason Annex A goes wrong is almost never that a home does not have the information. It is that the information lives somewhere different from where the return expects it, so the figure gets reconstructed under time pressure and stops matching the underlying records. This is the mapping worth having on a wall.
| Annex A asks for | It comes from | The error inspectors flag |
|---|---|---|
| Children placed, ages, placing authority, admission dates | Placement records and the child’s file | Dates that disagree with the placement plan or the daily logs |
| Safeguarding concerns and referrals | Safeguarding log, referral records | Concerns recorded with no visible outcome |
| Missing episodes and return interviews | Missing-from-care records | Episode counted but no return interview recorded |
| Physical intervention | Restraint records | No de-escalation or child’s account recorded |
| Complaints from children and others | Complaints log | Informal complaints never logged, so the count reads as zero |
| Staffing, qualifications, vacancies, turnover, agency use | Staff files and the rota | Training currency that has lapsed since the figure was taken |
| Notifications made (Reg 40) | Notification records | Events that met the threshold but were never notified |
| Regulation 44 visits and Regulation 45 review | Independent visitor reports, quality of care review | Recommendations with no recorded response |
How far back does Annex A go?
The return covers the period since your last full inspection, which is why homes inspected eighteen months ago have a materially bigger job than homes inspected eight months ago. It is also why reconstructing it at the point of request is so painful: you are being asked to summarise a period you were living through, not one you were documenting for this purpose.
The practical consequence is that the categories have to be tagged as you record, not derived afterwards. A home that categorises each incident, missing episode and complaint at the moment it is written up can produce the return in an afternoon. A home that does not is reading a year of prose looking for countable events.
What changed for April 2026
The structure of the request has not been reinvented. What Ofsted reinforced, alongside the 1 April 2026 SCCIF update, is the expectation that Annex A is evidence of understanding, not just a data return. Inspectors are looking for whether the home can explain the patterns in its own figures and show what it changed because of them.
In practice that shifts the work earlier. A rising count of missing episodes is not itself a problem; being unable to say what you noticed and what you did about it is. There is more on how this fits the wider framework in the guide to how Ofsted inspects children’s homes.
The pattern → action → learning trail
Since the framework’s shift toward impact, inspectors don’t just want the counts. They want evidence that you saw the pattern first. For each theme in Annex A, be able to answer three questions from your own records: What happened? What did we do about it? What changed for the child? If your recording captures those at the time, Annex A analysis becomes reading, not archaeology.
Three habits that make it painless
- Record against the event, on the day. Retrospective reconstruction is where reconciliation errors come from.
- Tag as you go. If every incident, missing episode and complaint is categorised at the point of recording, the counts fall out automatically.
- Review monthly, not pre-inspection. Ten minutes with the month’s numbers alongside your Reg 44 visit keeps the story current, and means an unannounced inspection changes nothing.
Common questions
What is Annex A in a children's home inspection?
Annex A is Ofsted's standard information request, made under section 31 of the Care Standards Act 2000. It is a structured set of data about the children placed in your home, your staff, incidents, and regulatory activity since the last inspection, which you complete and return to the inspector electronically.
When do I have to complete Annex A?
At inspection. Because full inspections of children's homes are unannounced, in practice that means keeping the underlying records current all year rather than completing it on request. Homes whose daily records already capture the categories simply export them; homes that do not spend the inspection reconstructing them.
What information does Annex A ask for?
The children placed and their plans; safeguarding concerns and referrals; missing episodes and return interviews; every use of physical intervention; complaints and their outcomes; staffing, qualifications, vacancies, turnover, supervision and training; and regulatory activity including Regulation 40 notifications, Regulation 44 visits and your Regulation 45 review.
What happens if my Annex A numbers do not match my records?
It undermines the credibility of your records as a whole. If Annex A reports three missing episodes and the daily logs show five, the inspector's line of enquiry stops being about missing episodes and becomes about whether anything you record can be relied on. Reconciliation matters more than presentation.
Make readiness a side-effect of recording.
Hearth links every daily log, incident and key-work note to a Quality Standard, so your evidence assembles itself as your team works. Built only for children’s homes in England.
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Hearth is an independent software provider and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Ofsted. This guide is general information about the regulatory framework, not regulatory or legal advice. Always check the current Children’s Homes (England) Regulations 2015, the Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations and the SCCIF on GOV.UK for the authoritative detail.