Public sector organisations face pressures that off-the-shelf chat tools simply aren't designed for: data residency obligations, freedom-of-information implications, accessibility mandates, high-volume contact periods, and the expectation of complete accountability for every interaction.
IMSupporting was engineered from the ground up for exactly these requirements. Every conversation is stored in UK data centres, admin actions are written to searchable audit logs, and the chat window announces new messages to screen readers and labels its controls.
Our hybrid AI model means that the AI handles routine, high-volume enquiries 24 hours a day, while your human staff focus on complex cases and situations that genuinely need their expertise, reducing operational cost without reducing service quality.
See all featuresFrom frontline policing to NHS patient services, IMSupporting supports the full breadth of UK public sector contact.
Triage 101 non-emergency reports, answer public FAQs from approved guidance, route to specialist departments, and hand anything involving risk to trained handlers.
Live chat for police forcesAnswer appointment, referral, and general health enquiries 24/7. Safely triage patient contacts and ensure that clinical safety escalation pathways are enforced at every stage.
View healthcare use caseHandle council tax enquiries, bin collection, planning applications, housing repairs and resident complaints from a single platform with department routing.
Live chat for councilsSupport citizens with benefits, licensing, permits, and service applications at scale. AI handles high-volume transactional enquiries while agents handle sensitive and complex cases.
Speak to our teamManage community enquiries, home fire safety checks, business compliance questions, and public information requests while routing genuine emergencies to voice immediately.
Speak to our teamSupport school admissions, SEND enquiries, term dates, transport and parent communications at scale, with journeys in the languages your team writes and an AI that answers from your own local authority documents.
View education use casePurpose-built features for the compliance, accountability, and accessibility requirements of UK government and public service organisations.
Conversation data is stored in UK data centres. On standard plans, AI features, when on, are processed by OpenAI outside the UK. On Enterprise, AI processing can run entirely in the UK, for example on Azure OpenAI in UK South, with no training on your data and nothing stored by the AI provider. Human Only mode switches AI off.
The platform holds Cyber Essentials certification, aligning with the UK government's baseline cyber security standard and meeting the requirements expected of suppliers to public sector organisations.
Every message is timestamped in the transcript, and admin and operator actions are recorded in audit logs you can search for 90 days, and on Enterprise audit records are kept for as long as you require. Supports FOI compliance, safeguarding reviews, complaints investigations, and formal accountability requirements.
Inside the chat window, new messages are announced to screen readers and controls are labelled. A chat widget you pay for is part of your website under the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018, so open chat from your own labelled link and include it in your accessibility statement.
Build every journey to ask about immediate danger first, show your emergency and crisis guidance, and send anything involving risk straight to a trained person. Handlers can take over any AI chat. Critical for police, NHS, and social services deployments.
Route citizen contacts to the right team, whether that's housing, licensing, tax, waste or a specialist safeguarding unit. Departments route and label chats and can open and close separately, with one shared knowledge base per deployment.
Upload your own handbooks, service guides, policies, and FAQs to train the AI on your organisation's specific knowledge. The AI stays within the bounds of what it has been taught, reducing the risk of hallucinated or inaccurate responses.
The AI handles citizen contacts around the clock including nights, weekends, and bank holidays. When your team is available, complex cases are seamlessly handed to a human operator with full conversation context already captured.
Real-time and exportable reports on contact volume, resolution rates, response times, satisfaction scores, and AI vs. human handling split. Everything you need to demonstrate value and meet performance framework obligations.
Every element of IMSupporting is designed for the compliance requirements of UK public sector organisations. We don't bolt compliance on: it is built into the architecture.
Chat data stored in UK data centres. AI processing by OpenAI only when AI features are on, or entirely in the UK on Enterprise.
Full compliance with UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. Data processing agreements available for all clients.
Certified under the UK government's Cyber Essentials scheme, a requirement for many public sector supplier contracts.
Granular permission levels ensure staff see only what they need. Full separation between departments and data types.
All data in transit and at rest is encrypted using industry-standard protocols. TLS in transit, AES-256-GCM at rest with a key per account.
Information about the chat window for your own accessibility statement under the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018.
Book a personalised demonstration with our public sector specialists. We'll walk through a deployment scenario tailored to your organisation's contact types, compliance requirements, and service structure.
Yes. The platform was designed specifically for environments where data sensitivity is high. Chat data is stored in UK data centres, every conversation is kept as a full transcript, and administrator and operator roles separate who can change settings. On standard plans, AI features are processed by OpenAI outside the UK; on Enterprise, AI processing can run entirely in the UK, and retention is configured to your requirements. We offer data processing agreements and can support your Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) process.
The AI answers from documents and knowledge bases that you upload: your own service guides, policies, FAQs and handbooks. Where they don't cover a question it can draw on general knowledge, so test it before go-live, and it hands over to a person when someone asks for one and staff are online. This RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) approach reduces the risk of inaccurate answers but can't remove it, so keep sensitive journeys with people.
Design each journey to ask about immediate danger first and show your emergency and crisis guidance, then send anything involving risk straight to a trained person. The AI agent doesn't assess risk by itself: it hands over when someone asks for a person, and your handlers can take over any AI chat at any time.
Partly. Create departments such as housing, licensing or benefits, route chats to them from the chat flow or the page they start on, and open or close each one separately. Departments organise and label chats rather than hide them: there is one shared queue, every operator can see every chat, office hours are set for the whole account, and there is one AI knowledge base per account.
A basic deployment, including the chat widget, AI setup with your knowledge base and operator accounts, can typically be completed within days. Full enterprise deployments involving multiple departments, custom workflows, and integration with existing systems are scoped on a project-by-project basis. We provide a dedicated implementation specialist for all public sector clients.
We are happy to support public sector procurement processes including direct award and competitive tender. You can also buy through BlueLight Commercial's procurement portal or through our partner framework vendors. Please contact our sales team for details of these routes, to discuss your specific procurement requirements and to obtain necessary documentation including security questionnaires, data processing agreements, and compliance statements.
