AI not widely used in government | THINK Digital Partners : THINK Digital Partners

National Audit Office report finds a lack of AI adoption across government bodies, despite a June 2024 deadline for adoption plans.

Posted 19 March 2024 by Christine Horton

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not yet widely used across the public sector, despite government bodies being pushed to create AI adoption plans.

Government departments are required to create AI adoption plans by June 2024. But as of autumn 2023, just over a third (37 percent) of the 87 government bodies have deployed AI, with typically one or two use cases in each, according to a new report from the National Audit Office (NAO).

However, more than two-thirds (70 percent) are piloting or planning AI, with a median of four use cases being explored per body.

Departments are also at an early stage in developing their own AI strategies and supporting governance arrangements. Only 21 percent of 87 government bodies responding to the NAO survey said they had an AI strategy. However, a further 61 percent have plans to develop one. Oversight and governance arrangements are also at an early stage of development.

DSIT and the Cabinet Office have responsibility for AI. But the NAO said the government lacks a coherent plan to support adoption of AI in the public sector as part of its 2021 National AI Strategy. The strategy, which was published in July 2022, summarised activity, but did not set out outcome measures or detailed implementation plans to support the aim for the public sector to become an exemplar, it said.

Initially a cross-government AI Strategy Delivery Group was established by the Office for Artificial Intelligence to oversee delivery, but this was disbanded in March 2022. In 2023, DSIT restructured the governance of the National AI Strategy. It set up a new AI Directors’ Policy Board in October 2023 to oversee delivery of the strategy, with representation from CDDO in the Cabinet Office.

The draft strategy for AI adoption in the public sector does not set out which of these departments has overall ownership and accountability for its delivery. CDDO and the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (i.AI) (within the Cabinet Office), and DSIT all have roles in AI adoption in the public sector, and there is therefore potential for overlap, said the NAO.

In 2023, CDDO carried out analysis to identify potential productivity gains across the civil service and wider public sector. It identified that almost a third of tasks in the civil service (those that it defined as routine) could be automated. It did not examine the feasibility of delivering these productivity gains, or make an assessment of cost. To take this forward, CDDO recognises that further scrutiny and evidence collection is required alongside substantial investment.

The NAO noted that large quantities of good quality data are important to train, test and deploy AI models. However, it found that limited access to that data was a barrier to implementing AI.

Departments also identified a lack of AI skills as a key barrier to adoption of AI in government. The report found that difficulties recruiting or retaining staff with AI skills was one of the most common barriers to AI adoption, identified by 70 percent of respondents.

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