UK chancellor allocates funds to deploy AI in government in Spring Statement
The UK chancellor Rachel Reeves has earmarked a chunk of the £3.25bn (US$4.2bn) “transformation fund” announced in her first Spring Statement to the deployment of AI in government.
In the Statement, delivered on 26 March, Reeves’ focused on making efficiencies, with technology expected to play a large part in public sector reform. She also announced that £150m (US£194m) would be spent on “voluntary exit schemes” to reduce the size of the civil service.
Her economic plan would “make our state leaner and more agile [and deliver] more resources to the frontline while ensuring we control day-to-day spending”, she said.
Of the transformation fund – which the government plans to spend between now and 2028 – £42m (US$54m) will go to three ‘Frontier AI Exemplars’, led by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
These exemplars are expected to “test and deploy AI applications to make government operations more efficient and effective and improve outcomes for citizens by reducing unnecessary bureaucracy,” the government said.
An additional £8m (US$10m) will be spent on procuring technology for the Ministry of Justice to relieve probation officers from administrative tasks such as form filling.
The inclusion of an AI fund in the Statement builds on the government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan, announced by prime minister Keir Starmer in January. Starmer said then that the government would use AI technologies to give frontline staff “the precious gift of time”.
The government employee exit schemes – which supports the government’s plan to reduce administration costs by 15% by the end of the decade – the AI exemplars and the probation reforms are the first allocations from the transformation fund, along with funding to increase the number of foster homes for children in the care system.
Reeves added that a minimum of 10% of the Ministry of Defence’s equipment budget would be spent on “novel technologies including drones and AI-enabled tech”, as part of an increase in defence spending to 2.5% of GDP.
The Spring Statement is the UK government’s second, smaller, fiscal event, in line with the chancellor’s pledge to make the Autumn Budget the government’s major annual public finance statement.
More digital professionals, fewer quangos
The government also committed to making one in 10 civil servants a digital professional by 2030 and reducing “duplication and inefficiency in arms‑length bodies” to improve accountability.
Earlier this month, the government took a step closer to cracking down on quasi-autonomous non-government organisations (known as quangos) by announcing that it would scrap NHS England and bring it back under the remit of the Department of Health and Social Care.
On the same day, Starmer said that those working in government would need to become “more content with innovation” if they were to deliver more effectively. He pointed out that while government employed more people than ever, delivery of services remained poor, and described government as “overstretched, unfocused [and] unable to deliver the security that people need”.
Taking aim at quangos and regulators, Starmer said that such bodies had allowed a “cottage industry of checkers and blockers” to proliferate and “stop the government delivering on taxpayer priorities”.
Referring to the role of AI in remedying these challenges, he said he would ensure “the best of the best on AI working across government”.
Read more: UK government issues AI playbook to repair ‘broken public services’
About Jack Aldane
Jack is a British journalist, cartoonist and podcaster. He graduated from Heythrop College London in 2009 with a BA in philosophy, before living and working in China for three years as a freelance reporter. After training in financial journalism at City University from 2013 to 2014, Jack worked at Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters before moving into editing magazines on global trade and development finance. Shortly after editing opinion writing for UnHerd, he joined the independent think tank ResPublica, where he led a media campaign to change the health and safety requirements around asbestos in UK public buildings. As host and producer of The Booking Club podcast – a conversation series featuring prominent authors and commentators at their favourite restaurants – Jack continues to engage today’s most distinguished thinkers on the biggest problems pertaining to ideology and power in the 21st century. He joined Global Government Forum as its Senior Staff Writer and Community Co-ordinator in 2021.
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