Reviewing an incident is a home manager's job and nobody else's. A senior or deputy cannot take it off the queue for you, and there is no way to assign it to someone — every incident in the home waits for a manager.

If you are not the manager and you are here because an incident is sitting unreviewed, the answer is to ask the manager on duty, out loud. See My incident is stuck in Under review.

The rest of this article is written for the manager doing the review.

Where it is

Open the incident. The Manager Review card sits at the top of the right-hand column, under the AI summary. Until someone reviews it, it reads "This incident is awaiting your review."

Required sections

Above the review note is a checklist headed Required sections. Each line is either ticked or marked Outstanding, and Mark as reviewed stays disabled until every line is complete.

Section	Complete when
Incident overview	The description is filled in
Debriefs	Every debrief on the incident has at least one answer
Missing episode details	Went-missing and returned times are recorded
Return home interview	An interview exists for the incident

Overview is always required. Debriefs appear whenever the incident has any — and an incident created with staff named as involved is seeded with one per person, so most do. The last two apply only to missing and absence incidents.

If you try to sign off anyway, ARC replies "Complete all compulsory sections before sign-off:" followed by the sections still outstanding, named. Where a debrief is the blocker, the checklist names who still owes one.

Read it before you tick it

The running log, the linked logs and the debriefs are the incident. The AI summary in the panel above is a reading aid and nothing more — it is advisory, and it will not tell you what the record fails to say.

Sign it off

Write a note in the box if you have one — it is optional, and the placeholder reads "Optional review note…" — then select Mark as reviewed.

The card then shows "Reviewed by [your name]", the time, and your note.

What sign-off does and doesn't do

It records who reviewed it and when, and clears the incident from the review queue.

It does not change the incident's status. That is deliberate: an approved incident used to jump backwards and display as "Under review" immediately after the manager marked it reviewed. Review and status are two separate tracks.

Regulation 40

Whether an incident is notifiable is your judgement, made here, in Manager Review, not on the form staff use to record it. Tick This incident may need to be notified to Ofsted and ARC records who decided and when, and drafts a summary for you to copy into Ofsted's own form. You can decide before you sign the incident off: the decision is due without delay, not at sign-off.

ARC does not notify Ofsted. See Record a Regulation 40 notification.

Send it back for changes, or undo the review

If the record needs more, choose Send back under the review box. Choose who it goes to and say what is needed; both are required. They are told by email, in ARC and by a dashboard alert, and the incident shows who it was sent back to and why. It stays with that person until they resubmit it.

If you have already marked it reviewed and something turns out to be missing, choose Undo sign-off and give a reason; the incident is awaiting review again. See Send a record back for changes, or undo a sign-off.

Sign-offs that sit inside the incident

Physical interventions, return home interviews and Regulation 40 notifications each carry their own Sign off button, shown to managers only, on their card within the incident. Those are separate from marking the incident reviewed, and you need to do both.