UK ministry creates new directorate for AI and analytics
A new directorate tasked with identifying the best ways to scale AI in local government services has been set up by the UK’s Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).
Tom Smith, the director of the new directorate, said it would seek to improve service delivery and to dismantle blockers to innovation. He said that while “brilliant work” was already being done, there were “barriers to address to enable mass adoption” of digital solutions, and that his team would be “working closely with [local government] as they develop their work”.
“Digital and data transformation must be central to how councils evolve. AI and other emerging technologies present new opportunities to improve efficiency, service delivery and collaboration across the sector,” Smith added.
Stressing the importance of his team’s task, he said: “The risks of not modernising are clear: higher costs, inefficiencies, and services that don’t meet the needs of residents and businesses.”
The directorate incorporates Local Digital, a team within MHCLG that provides digital and cyber resilience support to local government.
As well as scaling adoption of common digital solutions, key areas of focus for the directorate include the development and promotion of better data standards, the improvement of data mobility and integration, and supplier engagement and market analysis.
On the latter, Smith said the aim was to “help improve market conditions, increase supplier transparency, and help councils navigate the software market and procure better digital solutions.”
He made an appeal tocouncils to submit a short survey to the directorate, telling it about “the challenges and opportunities your council faces with data sharing and data insight generation”.
Read more: UK government issues AI playbook to repair ‘broken public services’
Another step towards a giant leap
In January, the UK government set out a wide-ranging digital transformation plan with which to make what it called a “giant leap forward” in state-provided services.
Peter Kyle, the UK’s technology secretary, said the focus of the blueprint for modern digital government would be on “overhauling how the public sector uses technology” to “slash the time people waste dealing with annoying processes so they can focus on what matters to them”.
Included in the government’s six-point transformation plan were the goals of joining up public services and harnessing the power of AI for the public good – both areas crucial to the new directorate’s mission.
In March, the government said it would move to change the way AI experiments and digital projects are funded in the public sector to reduce waste in taxpayer funding and boost efficiency through innovation.
Read more: New UK digital services plan aims to ‘transform the relationship between citizen and state’
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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