Imosphere

15/10/2026

What are your Care Act assessments telling you about practice?

In conversations with councils across England, one challenge comes up again and again: how do you get a consistent view of assessment quality across more than a small sample of cases?

That's what we've designed the new Care Act Assessment Quality Framework to help address.

It reviews existing Care Act assessment narratives against eight areas of good practice, helping adult social care teams to:

• See the evidence - understand where good practice is clearly evidenced, and where there may be gaps
• Spot patterns at scale - identify recurring strengths and gaps across assessments, teams or cohorts
• Focus improvement - give supervision, training and practice development a clearer evidence base

And because it works with assessment narrative rather than a particular template or structure, it can work with the assessments your authority already produces.

In the video below, our Lead Product Manager, Laura McIntyre, walks through how it works.

Start with one assessment. Then see what you can learn across many.

08/10/2026

Philippa Jordan, our Deputy Team Lead in Customer Success, is at the Engage Customer Summit in London this week!

The event brings plenty of fresh ideas and inspiration around the future of customer experience, building stronger customer relationships, and empowering teams to deliver even more value.

Enjoy the conference, Pip!

07/10/2026

More than 90% of local SEND reform plans have now been approved by the DfE, representing at least 137 councils.

For councils, approval also unlocks the government’s commitment to write off 90% of historical SEND deficits - an intervention estimated to be worth more than £5 billion.

But approval is only the beginning.

Schools Week highlights concerns from councils around the availability of specialist staff to deliver the new “experts at hand” service.

The big question now is whether these plans translate into better, earlier and more joined-up support for children and young people with SEND.

The focus shifts from what is proposed to what happens in practice.

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/government-approves-more-than-9-in-10-local-send-reform-plans/

And around 15 town halls with 'deferred' plans have until November to resubmit

01/10/2026

Preparing for Adulthood (PfA) shouldn't only come into focus as transition approaches.

At our first SEND Community Practice Network, local authorities shared what they're doing to embed PfA earlier in the SEND journey.

That included Adult Social Care involvement from Year 9 (or earlier), making more of annual reviews, creating different ways for young people to engage, and strengthening connections between SEND and adult services.

The discussion also moved beyond activity to a bigger challenge - how can councils understand what's working across their whole cohort?

We've brought together the practical examples and insights councils shared.

Read the insights from other councils: https://www.imosphere.com/post/lessons-from-send-teams-on-preparing-for-adulthood

What councils told us about earlier planning, joined-up working, and understanding what makes a difference.

01/10/2026

What does ‘good’ Adult Social Care actually look like?

Is it fast assessment, more direct payments? Strong satisfaction scores? Greater independence? Each tells us something - none tells us everything.

Through our recent conversations with councils, we've been exploring what happens when you look across these measures rather than at them in isolation.

We've turned that council insight and thinking into a short interactive self-assessment.

It helps you reflect on your own approach and identify where the evidence tells a coherent story - and where there may be questions worth exploring further.

Take the What Good Looks Like self-assessment here: https://www.imosphere.com/asc/good-practice-visibility-tool

It takes around 2-3 minutes.

You'll get a tailored summary highlighting areas of strength, questions worth exploring further and practical prompts to take back to your team.

Turn the evidence you already have into a clearer picture of what's working - and where to look next.

30/09/2026

Wishing Laura, our Lead Product Manager, an insightful day at the Community Care Care Act Legal Masterclass at King’s College London today!

With a focus on the latest case law, legal developments and challenges surrounding the Care Act 2014, it promises to be a valuable day of learning and discussion.

29/09/2026

What happens when Adult Social Care colleagues from across England come together to share experiences, challenge assumptions and explore what better insight could look like?

Our latest ASC Community Practice Network brought together perspectives from leading councils to explore how better insight can support prevention, anticipate future demand and turn evidence into earlier action.

We've captured the discussion in our new insight paper, featuring:

• Five priorities shaping the future of Adult Social Care insight.

• Practical examples of how councils are approaching prevention, forecasting and benchmarking.

• Five tests to challenge your own approach to insight.

• A model for turning individual evidence into collective intelligence and continuous learning.

• Emerging thinking on how AI could help unlock intelligence held within frontline practice.

From making prevention more visible to anticipating changing needs, the paper explores how insight can support more informed decision-making across Adult Social Care.

Download the paper and take the learning from our Community Practice Network back to your organisation: https://www.imosphere.com/resources/the-future-of-adult-social-care-insight

Download our free insights paper.

24/09/2026

What does a good Adult Social Care service really look like?

One strong measure rarely tells the whole story.

In our recent Good in Practice webinar poll:

• 76% said prevention spend is rising, but so is long-term demand

• 61% have routes to identify unpaid carers before crisis, but they remain patchy

• 41% said practitioner confidence is the biggest barrier to real choice

The recording is now available on demand. It uses real council examples to show what becomes visible when measures are read together rather than on their own.

Swipe through for a preview, then watch the full session: www.imosphere.com/webinar-good-asc

16/09/2026

A positive measure on its own doesn't always tell you whether good practice is happening consistently.

That was one of the areas we explored in our latest Good in Practice webinar. Our audience’s responses gave us plenty to think about.

• 76% said prevention spend is rising in their authority, but long-term demand is rising too.

• 61% said they have routes to identify unpaid carers before crisis, but those routes remain patchy.

• And 41% identified practitioner confidence as the biggest barrier to real choice.

None of these findings give us the whole picture on its own. But looking at them alongside related evidence can help identify where things appear to be working – and where it may be worth looking more closely.

We’ve brought together the highlights from the session and some practical questions councils can consider against their own evidence.

https://www.imosphere.com/post/what-does-good-adult-social-care-really-look-like

Highlights from the latest webinar and the final installment of our Good in Practice series.

16/09/2026

EHCP demand is continuing to rise - and the latest projections underline just how important the transition to SEND reform could be.

Some councils are now forecasting significant increases in EHCP numbers over the next few years, at the same time as local areas prepare for a system designed to strengthen earlier support and reduce reliance on statutory plans.

For councils, that creates the difficult balancing act of building tomorrow’s SEND system while managing growing pressure in today’s.

This is exactly why we believe reform-readiness shouldn’t mean waiting. Strengthening the quality and consistency of existing EHCP processes, understanding what is driving demand, and being able to model different future scenarios could become even more important during the transition.

The question isn’t only what the SEND system should look like in 2030 - but how councils manage the journey getting there.

A useful read on the latest EHCP projections and the pressures facing schools and local authorities: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/sep/06/schools-england-report-surge-send-applications

Schools and councils express financial concerns as EHCP applications surge before potential change in provision