Councils have been doing more with less for over a decade. GenAI might just buy them a little breathing space
Barnsley has become one of the first councils to roll out generative AI (GenAI) tools across its entire organisation as part of a six-month trial of Copilot for Microsoft 365, which it hopes will take some of the heavy admin load off staff.
Local councils have become perhaps an unexpected testing ground for GenAI as they search for cost savings and productivity gains.
The public sector is often seen as risk-averse because it’s spending public money and caring for some of the most vulnerable people in society, which creates a massive sense of responsibility, said Wendy Popplewell, executive director of Core Services at Barnsley Council.
“But that shouldn’t stifle our creativity,” she told Computer Weekly. “People would always be surprised to learn that innovation happens in the public sector – well, actually, it’s got to. We’ve got no other option. We’ve got some really tough challenges, and we have to deliver our services. So, the only thing we can do is innovate.”
Popplewell said the council is still delivering all of the same services it did 10 or 12 years ago, but with probably half the budget and half the people.
“We are always trying to find ways of using the resources in the best way we can, but also looking after the workforce a bit,” she said. “They are trying to do the best they can with what we’ve got, and the demands are getting greater.
The council started with a trial of about 300 Copilot licences late last year. “We offered them out to basically anybody who wanted one, and I think that attracted the early adopters who wanted to use it straight away,” said Popplewell.
Return on investment
In January, access to Copilot was extended to all council staff who have a laptop – around 2,300 people – as part of a six-month trial of the GenAI technology. The idea is to see what use cases staff come up with, and whether the council can get a return on the investment it’s making in AI.
“We need to make sure we are getting bang-for-buck out of this technology, and we are using this six months to do that,” she said.
The council is already halfway through the trial, and Popplewell said Copilot is being used by about 60% of the staff who have access to it. That figure is higher than she had expected, with departments including corporate services, public health, and children’s and adults’ social care leading the way.
The council has 180 staff who volunteer as Copilot champions, which it calls “flight crew”, who can