The authorities’s ambition to spice up effectivity by embedding AI in all elements of its work dangers being undermined by out-of-date know-how, poor high quality information and a scarcity of expert employees, an influential Commons committee has warned.
The report by the cross-party public accounts committee (PAC) discovered that greater than 20 authorities IT methods recognized as “legacy”, which means outdated and unsupported, have but to be given funding to enhance them.
Government analysis cited by the PAC within the report discovered that just about a 3rd of central authorities IT methods met this definition in 2024.
Keir Starmer’s authorities has repeatedly harassed its want to extend financial progress via the mass take-up of AI methods, together with within the public sector.
An official plan for the know-how revealed in January referred to as for the federal government to “rapidly pilot” AI-powered companies, saying this might each enhance productiveness and enhance individuals’s expertise of coping with officialdom.
In a speech earlier this month, Starmer mentioned AI ought to change the work of presidency officers the place it may be executed to the identical normal, with 2,000 new tech apprentices to be recruited to the civil service.
However, the PAC report additionally warned about “persistent digital skills shortages in the public sector”, partly due to civil service pay ranges “that are uncompetitive with the private sector”.
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSI), which is spearheading AI roll-outs in authorities, says it has beforehand recognised lots of the identical worries in two stories revealed in January, the State of Digital Government and Blueprint for a Modern Digital Government.
However, the PAC report makes a collection of recent suggestions, together with setting a six-month deadline for the division to particularly set out the way it will fund replacements for the highest-risk legacy know-how, and to additionally assess the prices of failing to take motion.
It additionally requires motion to enhance public confidence within the transparency and requirements for the way AI is utilized in authorities, saying that as of January this yr, simply 33 official data had been revealed setting out algorithm-assisted choices and the way they’re made. The report recommends this be sped up.
The report additionally identifies a scarcity of coherent methods to study from the mass of various AI pilots happening throughout authorities, calling for motion to deal with this.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the Conservative MP who chairs the PAC, mentioned: “The government has said it wants to mainline AI into the veins of the nation, but our report raises questions over whether the public sector is ready for such a procedure.
“A transformation of thinking in government at senior levels is required, and the best way for this to happen is for digital professionals to be brought round the top table in management and governing boards of every department and their agencies. I have serious concerns that DSIT does not have the authority over the rest of government to bring about the scale and pace of change that’s needed.”
A authorities spokesperson mentioned: “These findings reflect much of what we already know, which is why we set out a bold plan to overhaul the use of tech and AI across the public sector – from doubling the number of tech experts across Whitehall, to making reforms to replace legacy IT systems more quickly and building new tools to transform how people interact with the state.”
