The Scottish Government has used artificial intelligence (AI) as part of a public consultation process for the first time.
The Government used the tool, Consult, when seeking views on how to regulate non-surgical cosmetic procedures. The tool provided nearly identical results to officials.
Reviewing comments from more than 2,000 consultation responses using generative AI, Consult identified key themes that feedback fell into across each of six qualitative questions. These themes were checked and refined by experts in the Scottish Government. The AI tool then sorted individual responses into themes and gave officials more time to evaluate the policy implications of feedback received.
Consult is now set to be used across departments in a bid to cut down the millions of pounds spent on the current process, which often includes outsourcing analysis to expensive contractors, said the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT).
Consult is part of Humphrey, a bundle of AI tools designed to speed up the work of civil servants and cut back time spent on admin, and money spent on contractors. It forms part of the Government’s plan to make better use of technology across public services, in a bid to target the £45 billion in productivity savings as part of its Plan for Change.
Across the 500 consultations it runs annually, the Government said the tool could help save officials from around 75,000 days of analysis every year, which costs around £20 million in staffing costs.
“No one should be wasting time on something AI can do quicker and better, let alone wasting millions of taxpayer pounds on outsourcing such work to contractors,” said technology secretary Peter Kyle.
“After demonstrating such promising results, Humphrey will help us cut the costs of governing and make it easier to collect and comprehensively review what experts and the public are telling us on a range of crucial issues.
“The Scottish Government has taken a bold first step. Very soon, I’ll be using Consult, within Humphrey, in my own department and others in Whitehall will be using it too – speeding up our work to deliver the Plan for Change.”
Consult is currently in trial and further evaluation of the accuracy and efficiency of the tool ahead of final rollout decisions.
Officials who worked with Consult from the Scottish Government on this first live test commented that they were “pleasantly surprised” that AI analysis provided a “useful starting point” in its initial analysis, with others noting that it ultimately “saved [them] a heck of a lot of time” and allowed them to “get to the analysis and draw out what’s needed next”.
They also added that the use of Consult “takes away the bias and makes it more consistent”, by removing opportunities for individual analysts to “project their own preconceived ideas”.
DSIT stressed that officials will always review the themes and how responses are sorted into them through an interactive dashboard that will allow them to filter and search for insights.
