Government offers AI workshops to local authorities

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) is extending its AI training resources to local government, enabling councils to run practical workshops designed to help staff explore how artificial intelligence could improve their day-to-day work.

The initiative forms part of One Big Thing 2026: AI in Action, the annual Civil Service learning programme, which this year focuses on developing practical AI skills and encouraging staff to identify opportunities to use the technology.

MHCLG has developed workshop materials for its own civil servants and is now making them available to local government teams through its Local AI programme.

The aim is to help councils move beyond experimentation with AI towards practical applications that could improve services, reduce administrative burdens and support staff in their work.

Building practical AI skills

According to a blog post published by MHCLG, the workshops cover three areas.

The first, thinking critically, focuses on evaluating AI-generated information, checking its accuracy and determining whether it can be trusted.

The second, creating value, encourages participants to identify opportunities where AI could make information easier to access or simplify existing processes.

The third, redesigning work, examines how AI could change working practices while ensuring that people retain responsibility for checking outputs, making decisions and exercising professional judgement.

The workshops are designed to be delivered within existing teams, either by team leaders or colleagues with an interest in AI. Facilitators do not need specialist AI expertise, with guidance and supporting materials provided to help them run the sessions.

Supporting AI adoption across councils

The initiative forms part of MHCLG’s wider Local AI programme, which works with councils to support the responsible adoption of artificial intelligence and encourage collaboration across the sector.

In the blog, Kat Sexton, deputy director for local AI, and the local AI team said the department wanted to help councils build the skills and confidence needed to apply AI to real-world challenges.

The department also highlighted the importance of sharing resources and approaches developed across government, rather than requiring individual councils to address similar challenges independently.

The workshops are intended to support this approach by giving local authority staff access to learning materials already developed for central government.

Local government teams interested in participating can register their details through an expression of interest form, after which the workshop materials will be sent directly to nominated contacts for use within their organisations.

Testing AI-generated content at scale

Separately, the Government Digital Service (GDS) has outlined how it is developing tools to assess the quality of AI-generated content used in personalised government services. These personalised plans are designed to guide people through significant life events, such as having a baby.

However, generating content dynamically creates challenges for quality assurance, particularly when thousands of potential outputs cannot be reviewed individually before publication.

To address this, the team has developed an experimental testing tool that generates content across different scenarios and evaluates it against defined design criteria. These include the structure and wording of information, how legal requirements are presented and whether important deadlines are communicated clearly.

The approach combines automated checks with AI-based assessments, calibrated against human judgements. Separate systems are used to assess the accuracy and completeness of generated information.

The GDS team said the technology doesn’t replace the judgement of content designers, but provides a way to apply their decisions consistently across large volumes of generated content.