UK Pledges Public Sector AI Overhaul

The U.K. government has unveiled a set of digitisation plans within the public sector to save £45 billion each year in productivity. The headline announcement is “Humphrey,” a set of AI tools to speed up policy-making activities.

Most Humphrey tools summarise government data, including debates, meetings, policies, laws, and responses to consultations, so civil servants can search through it more quickly when making decisions. Before this, the collation of consultation responses was outsourced to contractors, costing the taxpayer £100,000 a pop.

Another plan is to establish a new team within the Department for Science, Technology, and Innovation that will be in charge of identifying how tech can be used to improve the efficiency of public services. Current systems result in the U.K. tax authority taking 100,000 phone calls daily and the driving licence agency processing 45,000 physical letters, making response times unnecessarily long.

This team will start by developing solutions to help people with disabilities or long-term illnesses more quickly access the services they need, such as financial support or healthcare. The tech will connect the relevant government departments or local authorities so individuals don’t have to be passed between up to 40 of them in a series of phone calls.

Other initiatives, announced on Jan. 21, include:

A full roadmap of these plans on how the government will renew its £23 billion a year tech spend will come in the summer.

SEE: UK Trails Behind Europe in Technical Skills Proficiency

UK public services are plagued by legacy technology

European companies tend to specialise in mature technologies, meaning the region is often seen as technologically behind, particularly compared to the U.S. The U.K. is a top culprit, particularly in critical national infrastructure, which is difficult and expensive to update without downtime.

SEE: 99% of UK Businesses Faced Cyber Attacks in the Last Year

A government report published this week found that nearly half of public services, such as those offered by the NHS and local councils, cannot be accessed online. For example, registering a death must be done in person and, businesses must place a newspaper advert when they want to buy a lorry.

The report found that a quarter of all digital systems used by the central government are outdated, leading to high maintenance costs and a heightened risk of cyber attacks. NHS England alone saw 123 critical service outages last year, leading to missed appointments and disruptions relating to staff being forced to use paper-based systems.

Cybercrime disruption can have even more severe consequences. In June, a ransomware attack on pathology company Synnovis led to months of NHS disruption and, according to Bloomberg. This resulted in harm to dozens of patients, with long-term or permanent damage in at least two cases.

Government is dedicated to making the UK an AI leader, reaping economic growth

This announcement comes just a few days after the government’s “AI Opportunities Action Plan,” outlining the 50 ways it will build out the AI sector and turn the U.K. into a “world leader.” The strategy involves boosting public computing capacity twentyfold, creating a training data library, and building AI hubs in deindustrialised areas.

Last year, the U.K. signed an agreement committing to explore how AI can improve public services and boost economic growth, along with the other Group of Seven nations.

SEE: UK Government Announces £32m of AI Projects

Science Secretary Peter Kyle said in a press release: “We will use technology to bear down hard to the nonsensical approach the public sector takes to sharing information and working together to help the people it serves. We will also end delays businesses face when they are applying for licenses or permits, when they just want to get on with the task in hand – growth.”

A “Digital Commercial Centre of Excellence” will also be forged as part of the overhaul, which will look at how public sector firms can invest in U.K. tech startups and scaleups, simultaneously boosting their efficiency and creating jobs.