UK aims to fix government IT with help from AI Humphrey

The UK government is striving to end its checkered record in managing large-scale projects with a "plan to put technology to work across public services."

The plan will see a newly created team within the Department for Science, Technology & Innovation work across central government departments to "join up public services" to avoid citizens telling dozens of public sector bodies the same information.

At the same time, the government intends to introduce a training program to help civil service technologists become "AI engineers."

It also promises a new package of AI tools it nicknames Humphrey, in homage to the classic British satirical TV comedy Yes Minister, through which fictional civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby became a byword for the art of obfuscation, manipulation, and filibustering.

The proposal follows a review of government IT, which claimed dire government systems meant that tax collector HMRC received 100,000 calls a day, while the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency processed 45,000 letters daily.

The subsequent report, set to be published today, claims that publicly funded services including the NHS, local councils, and central government are missing out on a potential £45 billion ($55 billion) in productivity savings through old or poor use of technology.

In a prepared statement, science secretary Peter Kyle said the government's application of technology had hampered public services for too long.

"We will use technology to bear down hard on the nonsensical approach the public sector takes to sharing information and working together to help the people it serves," he said. "We will also end delays businesses face when they are applying for licenses or permits, when they just want to get on with the task in hand - growth. This is just the start."

The government is publishing what it calls a "blueprint for a modern digital government." It aims to show how the administration can also overhaul how it delivers digital services and spends £23 billion ($28 billion) a year on technology. It starts with a Digital Commercial Centre of Excellence. This will aim to help public sector organizations negotiate costly contracts together to save money, and open opportunities for smaller UK startups and scale-ups to drive economic growth and create jobs as part of the Prime Minister's Plan for Change.

The civil servant Humphry AI package promises several products that are ready to roll out. For example, the "Consult" tool analyses "the thousands of responses any government consultation might receive in hours, before presenting policy makers and experts with interactive dashboards to explore what the public are saying directly," the government said.

Currently, this process is outsourced to consultants and analysts who can take months to consolidate responses, before billing the taxpayer around £100,000 each time, it said.

Other tools include search, minute-taking, and task management.

However, to reach its goals, the latest initiative must overcome the public sector's track record in delivering modernization programs, which spending watchdog the National Audit Office said last week has accumulated at least 29 years in delays and more than £3 billion in cost increases.

Previous research found that nearly half of the £4.7bn government spent on IT in 2019 was dedicated to "keeping the lights on" activity on "outdated systems".

There is ample reason to question whether the government will succeed this time. But as Sir Humphrey once quipped: "I don't think we need to bring the truth in at this stage." ®