Stormont suggests AI could automate public sector admin

A draft Stormont strategy suggests Artificial Intelligence (AI) could be rolled out across the public sector to automate routine administrative tasks.

It highlights document processing, data entry, minute-taking, and basic query handling as prime areas for automation.

The strategy does not mention job cuts but suggests changes to how civil servants will work.

It states that staff should be “freed up for human interactions by automating routine public-facing tasks”.

The document, published by the Executive Office, also says that “basic technologies should be rolled out as a priority to increase efficiency in routine office tasks”.

It also suggests that AI could be used to speed up public consultations to “enable a swifter passage to policy”.

Other areas highlighted for transformation include using AI to speed up planning application and analysing large public datasets to guide policy decisions.

The draft, developed alongside the Department for the Economy, says that “large-scale transformation in one go is virtually impossible”.

Instead it suggests an approach of breaking down transformation into “readily comprehensible projects with a clear emphasis on value and impact” alongside training and “a space for experimentation”.

It also suggests that new roles will have to be created in the form of “human oversight teams” within each department who have technical expertise and are also “critical thinkers and challengers”.

Human oversight is among the eight principles in the consultation which it says “sets an operational expectation for how AI should be developed, procured, and managed”.

It also advocates a “smart second-mover” approach, which means, rather than spending huge sums trying to build bespoke AI tools from scratch, the public sector should adapt proven, off-the-shelf technologies that have succeeded elsewhere.