Currently if a person needs access to a responsibility within EBS he she needs to get an approval from the Business Lead/head.

I was wondering if there is a standard functionality wherein person X can request for a responsibility and that can be sent to someone for approval using AME..

There's an application called Oracle User Management (OUM) that includes the function you mention. It also includes password resets and some other things too, and of course AME can be used to determine the approval rules.

OUM is going to become more and more important looking forward - as anyone who has upgraded Oracle Learning Mgt to OLM.J can witness.

There's too much in that application for me to go into here, so have a browse on Metalink, and if any specific questions give me a shout. You will note that in OUM Resonsibilities have become 'Roles' which have expanded functionality.

We're in the midst of user-testing of OLM 12.1.3 and have raised a couple of bugs with Oracle against the RBAC (role based access control) specifically in OLM.

I will dig out a precis of the information and post back before the end of this week (busy busy)

Also have a look at the attached note for other known issues..
Known Issues on Top of Patch 9114911 - R12.HR_PF.B.DELTA.3 [ID 1075479.1]