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Sir Keir Starmer stated this week that the digitization of government services could reach up to £ 45 billion in savings and productivity fees annually in the public sector.
UK Prime Minister reached this total number after the examination of this year ordered by Secretary of the Technology, Peter Kyle, and was conducted by officials in his department together with the Bain & Company advisory company.
Their report, published in January, estimated that the greater use of digital technology and artificial intelligence could save 4-7 percent of expenditure in the public sector in total, making it the “most powerful lever” to launch a reform throughout the country. What is crucial, however, he did not offer a detailed breakdown.
Where will the savings come from?
Officials of the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology told the Financial Times that £ 36 billion – or 80 percent – estimated efficiency will pass from simplifying and automation of delivery in the public sector.
This would include wide use Ai To perform administrative tasks, such as rewriting meetings, sorting and analysis of response to state consultations, summary of policies and conducting legal and parliamentary research. Government AI incubator currently develops “Humphrey”, a tool package to cover each of these areas named after Mandarini from the TV series Yes, the minister.
These tools can save billions of pounds a year from the money currently spent on the performers. For example, the cost of staff for analysis of response to state consultations amounts to £ 80 million per year.
Where do other savings come from?
A further £ 4 billion provided savings will result in “Migration of Processing Services on Cheaper Internet Channels”, a forecast of an official. This includes switching from expensive manner of government communication, such as postal correspondence and text messages, on E -piston.
Whitehall is also launching a beta version of its Gov.uk application this summer, which aims to provide Britons with an internet approach point for all their interactions with the state – ranging from the submission of the fees and payments of tax accounts to the receipt of the reminder for the MOT. This will offer the Government a cheap way of communicating with citizens.
An additional £ 6 billion could be saved by a decrease in fraud and errors with digital solutions for compliance, the officials said. Digitization is expected to improve data management through HM revenues and customs and beyond, improving the capacity for algorithms to notice the fraud and tax deceit.
How credible is the calculation of the Government?
Some experts are skeptical. Nick Davies, Director of the Government Think-Tank Institute, said he understood that digital technology could increase productivity, but warned that Starmer’s proposal for significant savings could be misleading.
Although “transaction” services such as issuing passports and driver’s licenses and other functions of back-offs can automate, it is difficult to copy in services focused on a person, such as health care that requires staff in the first place, he said.
Davies predicted that the achievement of true savings would require a “huge proportion” to the state to stop providing some services, not simply automated them.
Joe Hill, Director of Policy in the Think-Tank reform, said “it is clear that more savings can be introduced through areas such as fraud,” but warned that neither the Finance nor the Budget Liability Office should incorporate these savings into their “general obligations for digitization and automation in the public sector.”
Chi onwurah, chairman of the Commons Innovation Committee, Innovation and Technology, said that the total number seems “credible, in theory, but that he will require coordination of ministers, civil services, systems and suppliers.” The past promise of a technological transformation in the public sector has not been realized, “she warned digital health cardboard, which its committee examines.
