All civil servants to get AI training 

Every civil servant is to be given training on artificial intelligence (AI) tools to deliver better public services.

Officials will be tasked with assessing how they can use the technology to streamline their own work wherever possible, said the government.

Government staff will be taught to use AI to “drive innovation, work with departments more easily, remove unnecessary processes and build technological expertise.”

The practical training, set to roll out this Autumn, will give “all civil servants a working-level knowledge of AI and raise awareness of where government is already using AI to transform public services.”

The Cabinet Office said the scheme is part of a drive to create a Civil Service that will “take more calculated risks, and constantly learn from these, to ensure public services can have a more positive impact on people’s lives.”

The training will be provided through the One Big Thing project, which develops officials each year on a key skill that has been identified as valuable for the organisation’s future.

‘Two-thirds’ of tasks could be automated?

The government believes its least senior civil servants spend almost two-thirds of their time on routine tasks that could be automated, according to documents obtained by POLITICO that were put together by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and obtained through Freedom of Information requests.

It estimates that civil service executive officers, senior executive officers, and higher executive officers spend 48 percent, 43 percent, and 23 percent of their time on routine tasks respectively, while the most senior civil servants dedicate exactly none (zero percent) of their time to routine tasks.

AI in use across government

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is using AI to understand and summarise high volumes of correspondence, doing in real time what used to take weeks. Customers reportedly identified as potentially vulnerable have their information shared with colleagues in case they need more urgent support. 

The NHS is using AI to analyse X-ray images and help clinicians read brain scans more quickly, shortening the time it takes for patients to be treated.

Meanwhile, small businesses can get advice through the UK government’s generative AI chatbot, which aims to make it easier to find information on GOV.UK. This could lead to the chatbot being rolled out across the full government website, across more than 700,000 pages.

New AI scholarships

Elsewhere, the government has announced that young people with a talent for AI may get to study at some of Britain’s top universities through a new scholarship programme.

The Sparck AI scholarships, named after British computer scientist Karen Sparck Jones, will provide full funding for master’s degrees at nine leading UK universities specialising in AI and STEM subjects, from Edinburgh to Manchester, and Newcastle to Bristol.