Business guidance

Education & Training

Beauty course accreditation and regulated qualifications

You need no licence to teach. Only a recognised awarding organisation can award a regulated qualification, and you usually offer one as its approved centre.

Education & Training

Becoming an apprenticeship training provider

To deliver government-funded apprenticeship training in England, you must be on the Apprenticeship Provider and Assessment Register, which needs at least 12 months' trading and a UK Provider Reference Number. Funding is paid 80% in monthly instalments and 20% on completion.

Education & Training

Check if you need registration or a DBS check to tutor

No licence or register covers private tutoring in England, and no law requires a tutor to hold a DBS check. Registration applies only to full-time teaching or some childcare for under-8s. If your teaching is eligible, you can apply for your own Enhanced check through an umbrella body.

Healthcare & Social Care

Claim local authority funding for free childcare places

To be paid for funded childcare places in England, sign a provider agreement with the local authority, verify parents' eligibility codes before places start, and charge only for genuinely optional extras. From October 2026 a local authority must pay monthly if you ask.

Healthcare & Social Care

Get planning permission for nursery premises

A day nursery falls in planning use class E(f). If your premises are already in Class E, such as a shop or office, you can usually open a nursery without planning permission for a change of use. Other premises need permission, and councils often attach conditions on hours, numbers, noise and parking.

Healthcare & Social Care

Insurance for Childcare Businesses

Insurance requirements and options for childcare providers including public liability, employer's liability, professional indemnity, and vehicle insurance for outings.

Healthcare & Social Care

Keep children's records and protect their data

Childcare providers in England must keep a record for each child, a daily attendance record, and written records of medicines, accidents, physical intervention and complaints, and handle them under UK GDPR. Tell Ofsted about serious incidents within 14 days.

Healthcare & Social Care

Keep food safe in your childcare setting

If you give children meals, snacks or drinks, you are a food business: register with your local authority (childminders are registered through Ofsted), run a food safety system, manage allergens, and serve healthy, balanced food and fresh water under the EYFS nutrition guidance.

Healthcare & Social Care

Manage fire safety and risk in a childcare setting

Every registered childcare provider must have an emergency evacuation procedure, working fire detection and control equipment, and clear fire exits. Nurseries and other non-domestic premises also need a recorded fire risk assessment, and every provider must assess risks to children, including on outings.

Healthcare & Social Care

Meet the EYFS requirements for a childcare setting

All early years providers registered in England must follow the EYFS statutory framework, which sets the learning, assessment, staffing, safeguarding and premises requirements. Ratios apply across the whole provision, at least one paediatric first aider must be present, and each child needs a key person.

Healthcare & Social Care

Outdoor Learning and Forest School in Early Years

Requirements for outdoor learning and forest school provision in early years settings, including risk assessment, insurance, qualifications, and health and safety compliance.

Healthcare & Social Care

Prepare for an Ofsted Inspection

Ofsted inspects a childcare setting within 30 months of registration and then at least once in every 4-year window, and since 10 November 2025 it publishes a report card grading each area on a 5-point scale. The best preparation is good everyday practice, backed by self-evaluation and evidence.

Healthcare & Social Care

Recruit staff safely for a childcare setting

Before anyone starts work in a childcare setting, you must get a written reference, receive their enhanced DBS and barred list result, and check they are not disqualified. Record each check. Nobody unchecked may have unsupervised contact with children.

Education & Training

Register an independent school in Scotland

You must register an independent school with the Scottish Ministers before it opens, because carrying on an unregistered school is a criminal offence. Apply in writing to the Registrar of Independent Schools with your plans and policies, prepare for HM Inspectors, then send an annual return every September.

Education & Training

Register an independent school in Wales

You must register an independent school with the Welsh Ministers before you admit any pupil, and running an unregistered school is a criminal offence. Apply online to the Welsh Government, allow at least four months for Estyn's inspection and the decision, then send the initial return and annual census.

Education & Training

Register as a nanny

You do not have to register with Ofsted to work as a nanny in a family's home, but registering on the voluntary Childcare Register lets the families you work for pay you through Tax-Free Childcare. You need first aid training, childcare training, insurance and an enhanced DBS check.

Healthcare & Social Care

Register Holiday Clubs and Out-of-School Care

Holiday, breakfast and after-school clubs in England caring for children aged 5 to 7 must register with Ofsted on the Compulsory Childcare Register, though some school-run clubs are exempt. Clubs for children aged 8 and over can register voluntarily, which lets parents use Tax-Free Childcare.

Healthcare & Social Care

Safeguarding and Child Protection for Childcare Providers

Every childcare setting must have a written safeguarding policy, a designated safeguarding lead trained to Level 3, and staff who can recognise physical, emotional and sexual abuse and neglect. Record any concern immediately and report it to the lead the same day; providers also have a legal Prevent duty.

Education & Training

Support Children with SEND in Early Years Settings

Every Ofsted-registered early years provider must identify and support children with special educational needs and disabilities under the EYFS and the Children and Families Act 2014. Group settings should appoint a SENCO, use a graduated approach with parents, and can apply for extra inclusion funding.

Education & Training

Train students on live models for beauty treatments

Students can practise Botox only when a prescriber directs them, and in England only on adult models. A course does not change the licence a treatment needs.

Education & Training

VAT on training course fees

Most private training academies charge VAT on course fees once they are registered. Exemption depends on who you are and who funds the course.

Tax & Finance

Check if you need to register for VAT

You must register for VAT when your taxable turnover passes the registration threshold in any rolling 12 months, or when you expect it to pass the threshold within the next 30 days alone. Under the first test, register within 30 days of the end of the month. Late registration brings penalties and backdated VAT.

Compliance & Legal

File your confirmation statement

File a confirmation statement every 12 months, within 14 days after your review period ends. Filing late is a criminal offence for the company and its officers.

Premises & Operations

Meet your business waste duty of care

Every business that produces, stores or disposes of waste has a duty of care under section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, and stays responsible after it hands the waste on. Use only registered waste carriers, complete waste transfer notes correctly, and follow the stricter rules for hazardous waste.

Compliance & Legal

Verify your identity for Companies House as a director or PSC

Yes, if you are an individual director or PSC of a UK company, or an individual director of an overseas company registered in the UK. Corporate directors and officers of corporate PSCs are not yet required to verify. The transition for existing directors and PSCs ends on 17 November 2026.