Correspondence Triage Automation Tool

This information was sourced from "Correspondence Triage Automation Tool" by AI.GOV.UK, https://ai.gov.uk/knowledge-hub/tools/correspondence-triage-automation-tool/?directTo=library. Licensed under Open Government Licence v3.0.

The challenge

Manual processing of ministerial correspondence was time-consuming and inefficient. Staff had to manually sort, categorise, prioritise, and route thousands of incoming emails and documents. The system lacked automated identification of high-priority, high-risk correspondence and meeting requests. These manual processes created bottlenecks and potential delays in government response times.

The solution

The Correspondence Triage Automation Tool uses AI to automatically process incoming ministerial correspondence. The system can sort emails by which team should handle them, summarise the main points, and flag urgent items that need follow-up. It can also match emails with standard government response templates. The AI predicts eight key pieces of information for each email: whether it needs follow-up, if it is high-risk, if it is requesting a meeting, which minister should respond, suggested standard responses, a summary of the content, what subject area it covers, and which team should handle it.

The results

The Correspondence Triage Automation Tool is currently live in production and has delivered significant efficiency improvements for HM Treasury's correspondence processing, including saving several hours of manual work per day.