Our visit with the 10 Downing Street AI team

28 March 2024 | The 12th edition of The Apolitical View by Apolitical CEO and Co-Founder Robyn Scott. Subcribe to the newsletter

In this week's edition:

• Meet 10 Downing Street's AI team
• South Africa’s reforms
• 10 weird (real) government jobs

It was a lot of fun to take up an invitation from the 10 Downing Street Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (I.AI) to exchange insights last week.

The UK’s I.AI is one of the most prominent government units exploring how AI can upgrade public services and government capabilities. Improving public sector efficiency through knowledge management is one priority. Their Redbox Copilot project was born out of a 2023 hackathon focussed on creating AI solutions to make the UK civil service more efficient. Referencing the literal red boxes used by UK ministers to carry official government papers, the project intends to leverage AI to search through vast numbers of documents and distil them. A prototype was trialled within two months, which yielded ideas for development and enabled testing of safety mechanisms. The scope of the Redbox Copilot is now broadening to the wider UK civil service. I.AI also focuses on hiring and retaining the best AI talent in government, which is a critical challenge for organisations working on AI.

You’d be forgiven a sigh for this relatively young newsletter yet again revisiting AI. But I would be remiss if I didn’t keep returning to the topic because it is one of the biggest conversations in governments everywhere. Other governments who’ve published recent strategies with potentially big implications for AI in the public sector include Singapore and the UAE. Singapore’s latest national AI strategy has a pillar dedicated to delivering better public services.

Taking a global view, and drawing on conversations we’re having with government AI units and teams around the world, some themes are emerging. Attracting and retaining talent, already mentioned, is just one of many. Experimenting fast enough to keep up with the technology is another challenge, leading to ministries, labs, incubators and units — to name a few models — focusing on rapid and safe testing and trialling. Approaches also differ significantly on ways of working with industry, on citizen engagement and on handling the media’s take on AI’s risks and rewards.

Where to focus is another question. With the almost infinite list of potential AI applications in government and public services, units are also grappling with how to prioritise, and justify, what they trial.

Sharing has never been more vital. Because AI developments are happening so quickly, with teams being formed in a matter of weeks, governments are even less coordinated and less able to share best practices than usual. We’re delighted to be working on changing this with our global AI in Government Community of Practice, where there’s a constant flow of public servants sharing new policies, reports, guidance, approaches and ideas.

South Africa, where I spent some of my childhood, has taken some big steps recently to put skills and learning high on the agenda for its public servants. 30 years of democracy (this year) is a galvanising principle. The National Assembly passed two significant pieces of legislation at the end of February aimed at improving the performance of the public service. The reforms place a big emphasis on learning. Every department is now required to spend at least 1% of their wage bill on training, and public servants can now only be appointed to senior roles if they have successfully completed 120 hours of pre-entry training with the National School of Government. South Africa’s 2022 Professionalisation Framework set out how critical capability-building is for governments trying to keep up with change, and I know from conversations with senior South African officials that AI skills are an important part of the ambition.

Robyn Scott

Apolitical CEO & Co-Founder

What's in our diary this week

If you’re a policy innovation nerd like me, you won’t want to miss out on this. We’ve just launched an Adaptive Policymaking Community of Practice — this is a must for policymakers looking to connect with peers around the world. The community is being led by Catherine Charbonneau, Director of the Government of Canada’s Policy Community, who came by the Apolitical office last week to say hi, together with the UK’s Andrew Knight.

Derek Alton, Apolitical Community Insights Lead, with Catherine Charbonneau, Director of the Government of Canada's Policy Community and Andrew Knight, Head of the UK's Policy Design Community

My recommendations

I’m an admirer of Jonthan Haidt’s work and enjoyed his new essay: End the phone-based childhood now, which has gone viral in the last few weeks. Mounting evidence that smartphones are “experience blockers”, pushing aside important life experiences as they suck up attention and time, makes the benefits of delaying children’s access to phones and social media clear. Policymakers working on childhood and youth development will find it interesting, as will almost any parent who finds themselves constantly wrestling phones from their kids (I’m certainly amongst those).

And finally...

We’ve updated our list of weird, wonderful and little known jobs in government for 2024, and there are some excellent new entries. Newt Strategist or Rat Czar, anyone? If you’ve come across any other wild and crazy job titles in government, please let us know.

Got thoughts, feedback or ideas for what you'd like to see in this newsletter? Send them directly to me or leave a comment below.