[01] Senior User Researcher
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Birmingham, Bristol, Darlington, Leeds, Manchester, Wolverhampton
£
I should preface this by saying first I don't have a view on Tony Blair, and we're already doing at lot with AI where I work, from predicting where potholes will appear, to using a translation service developed by Swindon Borough Council which is saving tens of thousands of pounds a year, to drafting things like job advertisements, which I use as evidence that I'm certainly not against the use of AI in the public sector.
Hetan's piece neatly summarises the hype. It also describes from where that hype might be emanating, the lofty expectations and risks of using AI in the public sector, and what the public sector should be using AI for right now.
Amongst the many statements that rang true with me is this
there are considerable dangers of locking in to a provider that you cannot leave, as they run the platform for your services.This is of course of true of any provider, and anyone who remembers why the majority of the world used Internet Explorer for a time when arguably Netscape and then Firefox were far superior will understand this.
I recently spoke at Public Service Data Live, which probably should have been titled Public Sector AI Live, and whilst it was encouraging that the phrase I heard most from contributors was "human in the loop", what I'm most concerned about is the outsourcing of decision making to big tech.
I'm concerned that some councils are already using AI in an unstructured and unmeasured way.
I'm concerned that already decisions are being automated (albeit at a low level) through the use of AI.
Whilst I don't have an issue with a simple algorithm enacting policy with, to use that phase again, a human in the loop to (at the very least) sample that decision making, I suspect in all cases it's not.
One you let AI provided by one of the major vendors make unchecked decisions, however trained or fine-tuned that large language model is, effectively you're handing control over to big tech.
Given the cost savings the use of AI can bring, it'll then be very difficult in-source that decision making and make the case to employ more humans to replace technology. So as Hetan says, let's automate the repetitive and the mundane of which there's plenty in the public sector, before we automate decision making.
What's certain is the AI genie is out the bottle, let's make sure we make the right wishes with it.
[01] Head of Product (Research and Data)
Our Future Health
London / Hybrid
£90,000 - £100,
[01] Senior Digital Advisor
Ministry of Justice
Multiple UK locations
£66,314 - £80,370
Closing
The hack was back. Whilst there had been a hack day in previous years, most notably the local democracy hack in Leeds in 2015, it had taken a break for a few years until 2024.
The 2015 event saw the participants leave the venue and roam the streets conducting guerrilla research on real people for an hour in the afternoon, and as an organiser part of me feared no one would return; thankfully they did.
This year, somewhat predictably we covered the topic of artificial intelligence (AI), and attendees were a mixture of local government officers and students at Birmingham City University, whom we managed to keep in the building for the duration of both sessions.
In the morning I ran a session on creating topic based assistants, something we've been doing at West Berkshire Council which you'll see more about over the next month. In the afternoon Paul Funnell took over, with he and his team running sessions on some of the amazing things they've been developing at Powys County Council.
What I thought worked really well was the combination of students, who generally had more knowledge of the theory behind AI, and the council officers who generally had far more practical experience of using AI.
25 September 2024 - SocialIf Birmingham is the spiritual home of LocalGovCamp then Manzils is where LocalGovCampers eat and as usual Manzils didn't disappoint the forty or so of us who attended.
Obviously discussion there is very much off the record, and on a far wider range of topics than just local government, but I can say I had a both an enlightening and amusing chat with someone sitting next to me who worked on DCLG's "50 ways to save" back in the day., as I believe the kids say nowadays.
It was great to catch up with Carl Haggerty too. I'm sure I speak for many when I say they'll always be a place for you at LocalGovCamp so don't stay away for so long next time!
26 September 2024 - Main EventAs in recent years, the morning featured predefined sessions, with the afternoon as the now traditional unconference format the event was founded on. AMThe first session I attended was run by Lisa Trickey, Sarah Slate from the Local Government Association and myself, and was part of the work Kafilat Akintoye and I have being doing with the LGA on adoption of the Service Standard.
I found being able to workshop this with a group in person was really valuable, and it'll feed into the recommendations from the LGA and LocalGov Digital to be published soon.
Next up was Gavin Beckett from Placecube on build vs buy, the middle ground of low-code platforms, and using open source. This again is a topic that's relevant to work Kafilat Akintoye and I are doing with my team, on the wider process of how new digital services come into existence.
Finally for the morning was Kat Sexton and her team from Birmingham City Council on amazing work they've done to create the Foundry. As with previous sessions, it provided some great insight into a process around the creation of new digital services.PMThe unconference sessions were in the afternoon and the first I attended was a joint pitch from Sarah Peña of Wokingham Borough Council and myself. Anyone who has followed her work around AI in local government will know she's not just a thought leader but delivers on those ideas too, so I was happy that we ran this session on a shared library of engineering prompt for councils together. Watch this space for something on that very soon.
The second session was pitched by Ben Cheetham on what how Local Digital can help local government, which was combined by the unconference organisers with another pitch about views on being hopeful or sceptical about the future of local government digital. We're at a pivotal point, not just in local government digital, but for the future of service delivery by councils and it was amazing to hear others' viewpoints and be able to share some of my own.
Unfortunately I had to skip the third session to catch my train, but by that point after two days ideas and innovation I think my brain had enough anyway!
In SummaryHuge respect to Nick Hill who puts LocalGovCamp together every year.
Thanks also to the sponsors who make it free to attend every year through their generous contributions.
Whilst online events have undoubtedly made collaboration, quicker, easier, and cheaper, there's nothing like being in the same room as others to facilitate learning and the sharing of ideas, and kick-start collaboration, from time to time.
So here's to LocalGovCamp 2025; I'm looking forward to it already.
[01] Director of Data infrastructure and Statistics
HESA
Hybrid - multiple locations
£81,500
Closing date: 30/
One year on my research suggests that chatbots are still not currently widely used in local government. At present around 14% of councils in UK and Ireland provide a chatbot facility and an equal number of councils choose to use webchat as use chatbots (see the table below): Council type Councils using Webchat – 2024 […]
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[01] Director of Digital, Data and Technology
University of Hertfordshire
Hatfield
£82,000 - £92,000
In 2019 the Govmetric satisfaction score on the top council website was 0.3; in 2024 the top council website weighs it at 0.2
17 September 2024[01] Head of Product, GOV.UK
Government Digital Service
Bristol or Manchester
£64,700 - £75,
Looking at the summary of the previous article and seeing how accurate it was
9 September 2024[01] Director of Essex Digital Service
Essex County Council
Chelmsford
£146,225
Closing date: 15/09/2024
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9 September 2024
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