UK government develops AI tool to help meet housebuilding target
The UK government’s Incubator for AI (i.AI) is working with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s Digital Planning Programme to develop an artificial intelligence tool to help councils make better and faster planning decisions.
Peter Kyle, the government’s technology secretary, said that the UK’s planning system had for a long time been stymied by “outdated paper documents [and] slow processes”, making it “nearly impossible for councils to make informed decisions” at pace.
The aim of the new AI tool, known as Extract, is to make the data used for planning more accessible through digitisation, converting “blurry maps and handwritten notes” into “machine-readable, shareable data” in record-fast time, the government said.
By converting old planning documents into digital records, Extract is expected to achieve in 40 seconds what the government said “typically takes 1-2 hours of [a] planner’s time to complete”.
Read more: UK ministry creates new directorate for AI and analytics
It is thought that Extract’s ability to lift crucial information from thousands of files could prove instrumental in cutting delays, reducing data errors, and speeding up planning decisions, all of which the government said would liberate planners to “focus on building the homes Britain needs”.
The project is expected to help the government hit its target of building 1.5 million new homes over the next five years.
The tool is currently in its early testing phase and could be made available to councils as early as this year.
The government said Extract could be used “across the public sector”, given that location-specific data is used by various departments to deliver a wide range of services and to inform government policy.
Read more: UK chancellor allocates funds to deploy AI in government in Spring Statement
Dismantling blockers to innovation
Earlier this month, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) established a directorate tasked with identifying the best ways to scale AI in local government.
Tom Smith, the directorate’s director, said that the new body would work to “dismantle blockers to innovation” in government.
He warned that there were many existing barriers to “mass adoption” of digital solutions, and said that his team would work “closely with [local government] as they develop their work”.
In late March, the UK’s chancellor Rachel Reeves used her first Spring Statement to announce that a chunk of the £3.25bn (US$4.2bn) “transformation fund” would be allocated to the deployment of AI in government.
Her statement emphasised the goal of making efficiencies within the civil service, and the role technology would play in delivering public sector reform.
Of the transformation fund, which is expected to be spent between 2025 and 2028, £42m (US$54m) will to go to three ‘Frontier AI Exemplars’. These exemplars, led by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), are expected to test and deploy AI applications to make government operations more efficient and effective.
Read more: ‘Radical reimagining’: lessons for the use of AI in public services and policymaking
About Jack Aldane
Jack is a British journalist, cartoonist and podcaster. He graduated from Heythrop College London in 2009 with a BA in philosophy, before living and working in China for three years as a freelance reporter. After training in financial journalism at City University from 2013 to 2014, Jack worked at Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters before moving into editing magazines on global trade and development finance. Shortly after editing opinion writing for UnHerd, he joined the independent think tank ResPublica, where he led a media campaign to change the health and safety requirements around asbestos in UK public buildings. As host and producer of The Booking Club podcast – a conversation series featuring prominent authors and commentators at their favourite restaurants – Jack continues to engage today’s most distinguished thinkers on the biggest problems pertaining to ideology and power in the 21st century. He joined Global Government Forum as its Senior Staff Writer and Community Co-ordinator in 2021.
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