The Nominated Individual: Named in Regulation, With No Personal Duty

Of all the senior roles in adult social care, the nominated individual is the one most often misunderstood — and the confusion starts with a line on the Government's own description of it, which says the nominated individual has no statutory responsibilities beyond those of any other employee.

That is a reasonable summary of a subtle position, and it is also the most likely sentence in the framework to be misread. The nominated individual is named in regulation. What the regulation does is place the duty on the provider rather than on the individual.

If you are one, or you are appointing one, that distinction is the whole thing.

What the regulation actually says

Regulation 6 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 applies where the service provider is a body other than a partnership. It requires the body to give notice to the Commission of the name, address and position of an individual — referred to in the regulations as the nominated individual — who is:

• employed as a director, manager or secretary of the body, and
• responsible for supervising the management of the carrying on of the regulated activity by the body.

The regulation then requires the registered person to take all reasonable steps to ensure that the nominated individual is of good character; has the necessary qualifications, competence, skills and experience to properly supervise the management of the carrying on of the regulated activity; is able by reason of their health, after reasonable adjustments, of properly doing so; and is able to supply, or arrange the availability of, specified information.

The word "competence" was inserted into that test, and the provision requiring character to be assessed against a specified list of matters was added, both with effect from 1 April 2015.

Three consequences people miss

Only an insider can do it. The regulation restricts the role to a director, manager or secretary of the body. An external consultant, an interim brought in on a contract, or anyone who is not an officer or employee of the organisation cannot be the nominated individual. This is the single most common structural error we see described.

Sole traders and partnerships do not have one. Regulation 6 applies only where the provider is a body other than a partnership. If you are a sole trader or a partnership, the role does not exist for you.

It is not the fit and proper persons test. Regulation 5 — fit and proper persons: directors — is a separate provision, and it is a prohibition on appointing or keeping a director who fails its test. Regulation 6 is a duty on the registered person to take all reasonable steps, against a narrower four-limb test. The two are constantly conflated, including by consultants. If someone tells you your nominated individual must pass the fit and proper persons test, they have the wrong regulation.

So where does the "no statutory responsibilities" line come from?

From the structure above. The duties in Regulation 6 fall on the body and on the registered person. The nominated individual is the person those duties are about, not the person they are on.

In practice this is a distinction without much comfort. The nominated individual is almost always also a director, and often the registered manager's line manager — so the duties reach them through those roles even if Regulation 6 does not address them directly. And CQC's assessment of whether a provider is well-led will land on whoever is supervising the management of the regulated activity, which is the nominated individual by definition.

The honest framing: it is a named regulatory position with real consequences, held by someone on whom the regulation imposes no personal duty. Treat the absence of a personal duty as a drafting feature, not as protection.

What the role actually involves

The Department of Health and Social Care added a nominated individual role category to the Care Workforce Pathway on 16 July 2026. It describes the role across residential and nursing care, homecare, day services, supported living and charities providing care, and notes that the nominated individual often holds another senior role — director or manager — depending on the size of the organisation.

The responsibilities it sets out: liaising with CQC; supporting managers to comply with CQC regulations; developing managers and leaders; keeping up to date with regulatory and best-practice change; and contributing to strategic planning.

Its baseline is unusually demanding. The minimum knowledge and skills are those of the registered manager role category — in other words, you are expected to know everything a registered manager knows before the nominated individual content starts. On top of that: governance and quality assurance, including maintaining CQC registration records and registered managers' details; risk management; business and commercial awareness; strategic planning; culture and vision; digital skills and transformation, including CQC's digital expectations; leadership and management, including supporting managers through registration; communication, as the primary CQC liaison and managing conflicts of interest; analytics; continuous improvement; change management; and equality, diversity, inclusion and human rights.

For the registered manager foundation underneath all of that, see our guide to CQC Regulation 7 and registered managers.

Named training and suggested qualifications

Two pieces of training are specified: Oliver McGowan training on learning disability and autism at Tier 1 if not already completed, rising to Tier 2 where the setting provides direct care to autistic people or people with a learning disability; and the Adult Social Care Digital Skills Framework, with all Level 1 competencies expected and Level 2 competencies also usable.

That the digital skills framework applies at this level is worth pausing on. The nominated individual is the person CQC deals with, and CQC's own expectations are increasingly digital — so the knowledge requirement explicitly includes understanding those expectations rather than delegating them.

Suggested qualifications: the Level 5 Diploma in Leadership and Management in Adult Social Care; Level 6 and Level 7 leadership programmes; the Leadership Qualities Framework; and frameworks for dementia, autism, end-of-life care, learning disabilities and mental health. The page also refers to a management and leadership code described as not yet published — which has been expected since 2025 and has slipped at least twice.

None of these is required. The regulation names no qualification, exactly as it names none for the registered manager.

How the three senior roles differ

Worth setting out plainly, because organisations get the boundaries wrong and then find them tested at inspection.

The registered manager manages the carrying on of the regulated activity, and must be fit to do so under Regulation 7. The nominated individual supervises the management of the carrying on of the regulated activity, must be a director, manager or secretary of the body, and is notified to CQC under Regulation 6. A director is subject to the separate fit and proper persons test under Regulation 5.

One person can hold more than one of these. In a small provider the nominated individual and the registered manager are frequently the same person, and that is permissible — but it concentrates the supervising and the managing in one place, and it is worth being able to explain how you provide independent oversight if they are.

And none of these is the deputy manager, which has no legal existence at all. Our guide to the deputy manager role covers why.

If you are appointing a nominated individual

Four checks, in order.

Confirm the person is a director, manager or secretary of the body. If they are not, the appointment does not satisfy the regulation however well-qualified they are.

Document the four-limb assessment — character, qualifications and competence, health with reasonable adjustments, and ability to supply the specified information. The duty is to take all reasonable steps, which means the steps need to be evidenced, not merely taken.

Notify CQC of the name, address and position. This is a notification duty, not an approval process, and it is easy to let slide when someone changes role internally.

And be explicit about what "supervising the management" means in your organisation, in writing. The regulation gives you the phrase and nothing else. If the nominated individual and the registered manager cannot each describe where one ends and the other begins, an inspector asking about governance will find the seam before you do.