Scottish Government tests AI tool to summarise reports in UK first

Scottish civil servants have successfully tested an artificial intelligence (AI) system to summarise consultation responses for the first time in the UK.

The tool, named Consult, was used by Scottish Government officials to speed up the analysis of a public consultation on how to regulate non-surgical cosmetic procedures, such as Botox and fillers.

The trial, described as a “bold first step”, saw Consult review thousands of consultation responses using generative AI, and produce “nearly identical” results to those of human officials.

Following the successful pilot run, the tool is now expected to be deployed across other departments in a bid to save millions in costs.

Consult forms part of a suit of AI tools named Humphrey built by the UK Government to “modernise the state” and “cut back on consulting spending”.

It is claimed that once rolled out, the tool could save officials around 75,000 days of analysis every year, cutting £20m in staffing costs.

UK technology secretary Peter Kyle said: “No one should be wasting time on something AI can do quicker and better, let alone wasting millions of taxpayer pounds on outsourcing such work to contractors.

“After demonstrating such promising results, Humphrey will help us cut the costs of governing and make it easier to collect and comprehensively review what experts and the public are telling us on a range of crucial issues.

“The Scottish Government has taken a bold first step. Very soon, I’ll be using Consult, within Humphrey, in my own department and others in Whitehall will be using it too – speeding up our work to deliver the plan for change”.

Consult reviewed more than 2,000 responses and divided them into key themes, which were then checked and refined by experts in the Scottish Government.

The system’s findings were compared to those of human experts, and both came up to be very similar.

Officials who took part in the test said the AI tool had “saved [them] a heck of a lot of time”, allowing them to “get to the analysis and draw out what’s needed next”.

The Scottish Government’s public health minister Jenni Minto said the tool was “very beneficial” and allowed officials to understand respondents’ views faster.

She said: “Using this tool has allowed the Scottish Government to move more quickly to a focus on the policy questions and dive into the detail of the evidence we’ve been presented with, while remaining confident that we have heard the strong views expressed by respondents.”

However, while “early results are promising”, further tests covering accuracy and efficiency will take place before a full rollout takes place, the UK Government said.

Humans will always be “in the loop” to examine the tool’s work, the government added.