Artificial intelligence (AI) can provide better ways to serve local residents, but it may not deliver the savings many councils are looking for, delegates were warned at the LGA’s annual conference in Bournemouth.
Theo Blackwell MBE, Chief Digital Officer for London at the Greater London Authority, said people approach technology in “quite a solutionist way”, looking for efficiencies, but the real benefit of AI is value added – the “ability to do a particular task much more effectively”.
“I’m seeing the potential for much better public services,” he added. “Savings may well accrue, but will be incidental to that rather than the main purpose.”
A more fundamental question is the use of data, analytics and AI to understand and improve prevention – for example, identifying and supporting vulnerable people before they reach crisis points, which would prevent “misery in human lives”, but also high costs for councils, he added.
Jason Kitcat, Director of Digital, Data and Technology, at the then Department for Business and Trade, said AI can, for example, enable social workers to do higher-quality visits and see more people, but that “there’s been too many unverified claims that this will drop money out of people’s budgets”.
“AI is just another technology. It’s not magic. So, we all need to calm down and think really carefully about what we think is an appropriate use for it, and what’s a cost-benefit analysis that makes sense,” he told delegates.
Mr Kitcat advised councils to be “fast followers” rather than leaders of AI developments, to be clear what they want from it and evaluate rigorously, and to not get locked into contracts – “Microsoft are not your friends”.
He added: “Service redesign has to be half of this. If we are just going to add AI to our existing ways of working, we’re not going to see much benefit.”