Councils turn to AI in attempt to fill £4bn black hole

Councils across the UK are making cuts of £3bn this financial year, despite recent funding reforms. Councils across the UK are increasingly turning towards Artificial Intelligence (AI) as they try to fill a looming £4bn financial black hole. But local government experts say it is not the "silver bullet" to save a system from "the brink of collapse". There are also ethical concerns around the increasing use of AI in assessing the level of care vulnerable people need. A government spokesman said it encouraged safe and responsible use of the technology where it could reduce workloads. A study by the BBC Shared Data Unit found all but a small handful of the UK's local authorities will reduce the services they offer this financial year, despite recent reforms to the way they are funded. The 218 upper-tier councils, which include borough, county, metropolitan and unitary authorities, will make a total of £3.2bn in cuts. Planned measures include reducing the frequency of bin collections, closing heritage attractions, ending bus routes and - in the case of one council - completely removing sheltered housing support. Fees and charges for parking permits and green waste bins will be hiked at dozens of councils, while almost every authority will raise council tax by the maximum 5%. Jonathan Carr West, chief executive of the Local Government Information Unit (LGIU), which advises on policy across the world, said the BBC study showed the sector was "still struggling to keep up with astronomic rates of increase in demand and cost for those key statutory services like adult social care and children's services". "The sector as a whole continues to become more and more on the brink of collapse," he added.

A spokesman for the Local Government Association, which represents councils across England and Wales, said the cost and demand pressures were "unrelenting". "In just three years, councils will need around 25 per cent more money simply to stand still," he said. "Without action, the services people rely on every day, from social care to safe streets, will be eroded." Though the government has increased the amount of grant funding councils receive from the Treasury since the pandemic, a study by independent thinktank the Institute for Government found it was still , external down on pre-2010 levels , external . Even if this year's savings are achieved, councils predict they will need to find a further £3.8bn by the end of the 2027-28 financial year to balance their books. A record 37 councils will also receive forms of exceptional financial support this year. It means many are trying to lower the cost of providing care to the elderly and vulnerable, whether by re-tendering contracts with cheaper care companies, closing care homes or by re-assessing those already in care to see if their package of support can be reduced. This year, dozens of councils have pledged to use AI to drive savings. Among them are Medway Council chiefs who say they will use AI to "draft care plans" and automate invoice processing. Several councils will reduce staffing in their call centres - which enable people to query council tax bills, order new bins or arrange a care assessment among other things - and bring in chatbots to "triage" initial queries. West Sussex County Council hopes its plans to replace nine call handlers with an AI contact centre could save £300,000 a year. But campaigners for the elderly say older people are already struggling to interact with automated chatbots where they have been introduced.

Similar measures have proved controversial in other areas. Derby's AI chatbot Darcie received several complaints for struggling to understand the local accent . Dennis Reed, director of the Silver Voices campaign group for elderly people, said: "People seeking social care support are likely to be confused, perhaps in pain, and not used to negotiating the merry-go-round of contact centres using AI at first contact. "What potential social care clients need at first contact is a sympathetic human voice, not a robotic answering machine." Denise Rowley, 71, previously taught IT among other subjects to older people at a college in Leeds. After suffering a stroke nearly a decade ago, she has relied on Wakefield Council's trips and falls service Carelink to help her if she gets into difficulty. But with the Department for Work and Pensions expanding its AI-assisted call centre and local councils following suit, she says older people are increasingly feeling shut out by new technology when contacting services they need. "Older people do struggle with technology," Rowley said. "It's bad enough having to use computers every time you need something, let alone having to talk to an AI. "And the thing is, a lot of these AI call centres are based on a system that didn't work in the first place." Councils and care providers are already using AI to write case notes, predict falls and analyse care records. But there are serious concerns around the use of such tools to draft care assessments, where social workers record a person's needs and decide what council-funded support they are entitled to.

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