Artificial intelligence is now one of the major talking points, and a big priority, for the UK public sector.
There was already a strong momentum towards harnessing the technology before Prime Minister Keir Starmer said it should be a key feature of the state earlier this year, and almost daily we are hearing of new initiatives and explorations of how to use AI in services.
But there are big question marks over how well the health and public sector is equipped for this, not least whether its data and infrastructure are strong enough to ensure that deployments will lead to rapid positive outcomes.
This was highlighted in a recent report from Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, with a warning that poor quality data, problems in data sharing and out-of-date legacy systems can all undermine the drive to utilise AI.
Digital leaders in the public sector are well aware of the issues and looking for ways to identify how they affect their organisations and find solutions.
Investigating the issues
In response, UKAuthorITy and Rackspace Technology are partnering in an editorial research project, investigating the underpinning challenges affecting the public sector’s readiness for AI. It is looking at the themes of IT modernisation, cloud infrastructure, the quality and location of data, the increasing budgetary constraints and the risks involved.
The programme involves a short UKAuthorITy reader survey, a series of editorial roundtable discussions with public sector officials working within the NHS, central government, local government and policing, a UKA Live discussion exploring key themes and challenges - including recent announcements on budget cuts and reorganisations - interviews and desk research to produce a series of podcasts, editorial and a white paper later this year.
All this will articulate the challenges and approaches to provide the right foundations for the public sector to realise the full promise of AI.
We are aiming to get a range of perspectives from across the sector and are open to contributions. Health and public service leaders interested in taking part in these editorial roundtables discussions are welcome to contact our research director Helen Olsen Bedford at helen@ukauthority.co.uk.
Research partner supporting this programme
