Britain Plans To Use AI To Run Public Services

Uploaded on 2025-03-24 in TECHNOLOGY-Key Areas-Artificial Intelligence, NEWS-Cybersecurity News, GOVERNMENT-National, FREE TO VIEW, BUSINESS-Services-Health & Welfare

The British Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer,, says that Artificial Intelligence (AI) could provide a massive improvement to public services and save the British taxpayer £billions.

In a speech setting out the government's plans to use AI across the UK to boost growth and deliver services more efficiently, Satarmer said the government had a responsibility to make AI "work for working people".

Recently, the government introduced its AI Opportunities Action Plan which is supported by leading technology firms, which have collectively committed £14bn towards various projects, which will create 13,250 jobs, according to government sources.

Now, in a speech in the the North Eastern city of Hull, Starmer spoke about how technology will bring about much-needed digital reform in government and make as much as £45 billion in government cost savings.

The Prime Minister said the technology represents a massive golden opportunity for the government, enabling it to bolster efficiency across a wide range of services. Starmer insist that jobs should not exist if AI technology can do them better.

He is hoping for a significant change in government operations, although his ministers have refused to set a target on how many jobs may be scrapped, his words suggest a potential major reduction. “You will already be thinking about how you use it in your work, and that's an opportunity we're determined to seize,” Starmer said.

“We're going to get the best of the best on AI working across government - I'm going to send teams into every government department with a clear mission from me to make the state more innovative and more efficient,” he added.

Starmer pointed to several example of where AI could help improve productivity and efficiency, including the automation of record-keeping in probation work. He noted that the same is true for planning applications, in which huge amounts of information need to be gathered, a task that can be completed more quickly through AI. The Prime Minister emphasised the importance of work training and apprenticeships, remarking on the importance of apprenticeship schemes and how they will bring people into the government who are skilled in AI and technology.
“We're bringing people in to do this, to transform the way that we do our business,” Starmer said.

Recently, the UK’s Department for Science Innovation and Technology (DSIT) announced a public sector funding reform that will aim to make the deployment of AI projects quicker and easier. One of the key objectives is a digitally connected health and care system that allows patient data to flow securely between IT systems, healthcare providers and other services.

The insights generated from this can be used to help refashion public services to the needs of populations, enable more targeted care and reduce unnecessary interventions. It is hoped that real value of digital technology will come not merely from digitising existing practices, but from using it to re-engineer them completely.

The views of welfare recipients are rarely included in the design of digital welfare solutions; they do not get the space to engage in a public debate where they can scrutinise and deliberate on them. We need more ways to include these voices and to learn from them what ‘good’ might look like.

These considerations do not just apply in Europe; as social protection systems are digitised around the world, governments need to engage with citizens to ensure systems are built to meet the needs of the most socially marginalised communities who are less likely to have the digital access and skills necessary to engage with digital services.

Digital welfare platforms in the UK and Scandinavia offer improved internal operations but can seem exclusionary and opaque to those accessing them to claim their right to social assistance. These systems need changes underpinned by a commitment to ensuring that the broader digital welfare ecosystem works to deliver entitlements to those in need with dignity and respect.

The Science, Innovation & Technology secretary Peter Kyle has said he often uses ChatGPT to help him understand the broader context where an innovation came from, the people who developed it, the organisations behind them. “ChatGPT is fantastically good, and where there are things that you really struggle to understand in depth, ChatGPT can be a very good tutor for it.” Kyle said.

According to one report, Kyle asked the AI chatbot why small- and medium-sized businesses had been so slow to take up AI. The chatbot replied: “While the UK government has launched initiatives to encourage AI adoption, many small businesses are unaware of these programs or find them difficult to navigate. Limited access to funding or incentives to de-risk AI investment can also deter adoption.”

In comment, the film director and member of the House of Lords, Beeban Kidron, who is leading opposition to the government’s AI copyright plans, said: “I am a bit worried that the science and innovation department is bedazzled with technical developments and not doing enough to protect UK democratic and economic interests.”

Image: Ideogram

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