The Department for Education (DfE) could soon use artificial intelligence to draft responses to as much as 80 per cent of its external correspondence.
Plans published in December by the Cabinet Office, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and the Government Digital Service reveal details of the DfE’s “correspondence drafter tool”.
The plans say the system can reduce the time it takes to draft a response to external correspondence from 30 to just one minute.
It will “create opportunities to prioritise more complex and high priority work” and in turn “hopefully enhance the department’s reputation with regards to responding to external queries”.
The department told Schools Week the tool will help to support some types of public correspondence from early this year. It is not clear whether it will be used to answer formal complaints.
But a digital safety campaigner has warned the tool cannot replicate the “necessary nuance and sensitivity to reply to a human being”, while the Public and Commercial Services Union has urged the government to protect employees’ jobs.
The tool will use Microsoft’s Open Azure AI, which can be used to write a first response to external queries.
Staff members must review text
The AI searches for the relevant documents and information before drafting the response in an email template format.
A staff member must review the text and is able to edit it before copying and pasting.
The Azure model provides “extra security” compared with other large language models, plans indicate, while open-source LLMs – which scan the internet rather than uploaded documents – have not been approved.
The next phase of any rollout will include uploading about 400 documents to the system.
The government says it expects the tool ultimately could address 80 per cent of the DfE’s monthly queries.
An impact assessment completed in November 2023 did not raise any concerns around the design of the tool, but the DfE said there were risks of hallucinations – misleading or false information presented as fact – that might impact accuracy.
The model has been developed to only pull information from inputted data, which should mitigate the danger of such hallucinations.
If the query does not relate to topics within the model’s data, it will default to a message saying it is not available.
DfE silent over staff cuts
The DfE did not respond when asked by Schools Week whether the introduction of the model would result in staff cuts.
But it said AI “has the power to transform the way we live and work, and like many organisations, we are harnessing AI and technology across the government to improve efficiencies”.
Its present use of AI to support responses to public enquiries “has led to improved efficiencies, faster response times and better allocation of resource”.
Plans say the model “will create opportunities to prioritise more complex and high-priority work” and “in turn hopefully enhance the department’s reputation with regards to responding to external queries”.
But Fran Heathcoate, the general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents civil servants, said any use of AI “must improve workers’ lives and public services”.
“We are urging government departments and arms’-length bodies to protect employees and public from potential harms, ensure accountability and to strengthen trade union rights in relation to AI.”
‘Who gains the most? We may find it’s those AI companies’
Jen Persson, the director of Defend Digital Me, questioned whether the plans “actually solve a problem”.
“The idea that text generators can do the thinking that incorporates the necessary nuance and sensitivity to reply to a human being is often misplaced – time and effort are rarely reduced in drafting correspondence.”
Persson said there were “questions here to consider for liability, confidentiality, stability and security”.
“I suspect once we see independent research we will find it is overall felt to be helpful, but in terms of who gains the most, we may find it’s those AI companies, rather than budgets, our civil servants, or public interest.”
AI is already used across a range of government departments, according to a House of Commons Library report.
The DfE is also experimenting with an AI tool to assist teachers by pooling government documents such as curriculum guidance and lesson plans, with Ofsted testing AI tools to predict which schools may decline in performance.
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