The use of AI at West Sussex County Council

The use of Artificial Intelligence ‘is the only viable way forward for this council if we want to improve our services and make savings’.

This was the message for West Sussex county councillors from Steve Waight, cabinet member for support services, during a scrutiny meeting on Friday (March 6).

Mr Waight presented a report about the various ways in which the council already uses AI and the ways in which it could help going forward.

A councillor of many years’ service, he told the meeting that it was more difficult now than it was 20 or so years ago to find a balance between providing more than 300 services and paying for them.

He said: “Every year, finding savings without cutting services has become more and more difficult.

“I think, with Artificial Intelligence, this is the first time in my time on the council that we have available a resource that I view almost as a holy grail, where you can actually improve the efficiency of the council and reduce costs.”

Some of the areas in which the council currently uses AI – or plans to – include:

T-Kit – a tool to help staff on the adults social care and children, young people & learning teams to transcribe and translate text and spoken conversations

Oracle Fusion Cloud – the new business management system includes embedded analytics and machine learning enabled capabilities used to improve data quality, strengthen controls and simplify processes

Adults & children’s services – the council uses analytical tools to help teams better understand demand, spot pressures earlier, and prioritise reviews or case activity where it will have the most impact.

The committee suggested that the council’s digital strategy – which was agreed in late 2024 – be updated. As was pointed out by Jay Mercer (Lib Dem, Horsham East) ‘things have moved on really fast since then in terms of AI development’.

When the strategy was adopted, the council said that AI was ‘not a standalone programme’. Mr Mercer suggested that it should be, to allow the benefits brought about to crossover into other areas of the council’s operation.

He added: “At the end of the day, we’re talking about a tool for productivity. We are a business of words and data leading to evidence decisions which, when implemented, lead to good services.

“It is critical to the core of our being that we use AI appropriately.”

There were some concerns, though, about the very idea of using AI.

John Dabell (Con, East Grinstead Meridian) described AI as exciting but admitted that it did scare him a little. Pointing to the rapid progress made since the invention of the radio, he said: “We’ve gained more and more of the whole world – and lost next door.”

Asking whether people or systems would be more important, he added: “I keep expecting Arnold Schwarzenegger to show up with all this talk about what’s going on at the moment.”

Despite the way AI is presented by Hollywood, he was told that it had to be ‘harnessed as a tool’.

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