There's a fundamental question at the heart of any software designed for social care and education: who decides what gets built?

At Imosphere, the answer has always been clear: local authorities do. Not through surveys conducted after the fact, but through genuine, ongoing collaboration that shapes every feature and workflow we create. After more than 30 years, we've learned this is the only way to build technology that works in the real, complex world of adult social care and SEND.

Why co-development matters

Social care isn't a problem you can solve from a distance. Every council has different demographics, market rates, and practitioner cultures. A tool that works brilliantly in one authority might miss crucial nuances in another.

The difference between software that gets used and software that gets ignored often comes down to whether the people who'll actually use it had a meaningful say in how it was designed.

In our early history, we built what we thought councils needed, then tried to convince them they wanted it. But we learned quickly to start with the problem councils are actually trying to solve and build solutions that fit their reality – not ours.

What co-development looks like

When a council partners with Imosphere, implementation is collaborative design from the ground up.

Discovery workshops bring together practitioners, team leaders, and commissioners to map current workflows and pain points. These aren't polite listening sessions, they're working meetings where we dig into how assessments actually get done, where delays happen, and what practitioners wish they could do differently.

Configuration workshops turn those insights into product decisions. What questions should be in this assessment? In what order? With what guidance? These decisions matter enormously to practitioners, so we make them together.

Testing and iteration mean councils try early versions, tell us what's not working, and we adjust. Getting it right matters more than getting it done quickly.

Learning together: The power of community

Individual partnerships are valuable, but something remarkable happens when you bring councils together.

Our user groups have become spaces where councils learn from each other. A transformation manager in one council shares an approach to embedding prevention that inspires another. A service improvement officer describes review workflows that other councils adapt. The collective intelligence of local authorities using our tools generates insights no single vendor could produce alone.

Building for evolution

Social care and SEND don't stand still. Legislation changes. Best practice evolves. New challenges emerge.

Our modular approach – whether the Adult Social Care Connected Toolkit or SEND Genie Toolkit – means councils can start where need is greatest and expand as they're ready. When Care Act guidance updates, our adult social care tools reflect it. When SEND legislation and guidance evolve, our products adapt. When CQC frameworks evolve or Ofsted focuses on new areas, we work with councils to ensure our tools support those requirements.

This isn't “agile development” as a buzzword. It's genuine commitment to staying relevant as the landscape shifts across both services.

The results of true partnership

The proof shows up in our local authority partners’ outcomes across both of Imosphere’s services:

In Adult Social Care:

• Partner councils consistently rank in the top third nationally for quality-of-life outcomes and self-directed support.
• Digital self-assessment saves approximately 8,600 practitioner hours annually per council.
• An estimated reduction of 25% of new support requests through accessible early intervention.
• Active use of our tools helps limit expenditure growth to around 2.47% annually through better matching of needs to resources.

In SEND:

• Top-up funding accuracy within 1% of actual allocations.
• Our tools help leading councils meet the critical 20-week EHCP statutory deadline 25% more often.
• £66 return for every £1 spent, with measurable reductions in disputes and complaints.
• Reduction in time spent drafting and reviewing plans with EHCP Genie.

These results emerge from partnership between good technology and skilled practitioners. Our job is to give councils tools that make their expertise more impactful.

Building responsibly with AI

As AI becomes increasingly relevant across social care and SEND, our collaborative approach matters more than ever. Our AI guiding principles aren't aspirational – they're commitments we're actively building into products with council input.

When we develop AI-powered features –  such as EHCP Genie for drafting and reviewing plans – we do it transparently, with clear explanations of what the technology does and its limitations. We maintain human decision-making at the centre and build in consent and data protection from the ground up.

This means sometimes saying no to features that might be technically impressive but ethically questionable. It means treating councils as equal partners in determining how AI should be used in services supporting vulnerable citizens and children with complex needs.

What comes next

After more than three decades working alongside local authorities, we know we don't have all the answers. What we do have is a commitment to finding them together.

The best products in social care and SEND aren't built in isolation. They're built in partnership, with the practitioners who use them, the citizens and families they serve, and the communities of practice that make these vital services work.

That's not just our philosophy. It's how we've built everything we've ever made. And it's how we'll build what comes next.