Authors:  Ben Worthy (Birkbeck), Laszlo Horvath (Birkbeck), Julia Cushion (mySociety), Alex Parsons(mySociety)

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Artificial Intelligence, as we know, is everywhere. For governments and public bodies, the possibilities for policy-making seem endless. As the UK government put it in its AI playbook ‘the potential of AI to transform public services is enormous, giving us an unparalleled opportunity to do things differently and deliver more with less’.

As with every other part of government, AI use has spread across local government in the UK. According to the Local Government Association around 70% of councils are now using them in frontline services, with almost all councils ‘using or exploring AI’ in some way.

What is less clear is what AI is exactly being used for, and how far advanced the work is. Are these experiments? Will pilots be abandoned? More importantly, how easy is it to make AI assisted policies democratically accountable? It is not clear how transparent and accountable these new AI policies are, or how they can be scrutinised.

Looking at London

London’s 32 boroughs are at the forefront of AI use and adoption. This 2025 survey put London’s local government at the top of the UK innovators, alongside Scotland. The London Office of Technology and Innovation (LOTI) is co-ordinating work and ideas, and several councils have partnerships with universities. 

Our joint project tried a first mapping of London’s local government to try and see more clearly where AI tools are being used in frontline policy areas and to get a sense of how transparent they are. To map the landscape, we used a combination of methods, including use of primary published official documents (strategy papers, charters), media searches and surveys (such as by the LGA), as well as logs of FOI requests already made. We hope this gives a first insight into where AI policy is happening, and how open and accountable it is to the public.

Where is AI happening?

In line with the wider picture, the most popular area for AI use in London is around Adult Social Care, particularly with use of AI for notes and minute takers. This isn’t surprising given that, for every £1 local councils spend, 39p of it goes on adult social care. The second most popular area for AI use was housing, then followed by AI chatbots for citizen contact. There was then a long tail of rather varied use from CCTV to planning.

It needs to be remembered that not all of these innovations are equal in size: for example Hillingdon’s AI chatbot covers 40% of all citizen interaction. Measuring the exact impact of each policy is complex, as some supposed ‘backroom’ services may make a difference to front-facing policy, as this experiment showed.

Areas of AI use across London Boroughs

So, at least for London, we can see that AI policy is happening, mainly across particular policy areas and in certain forms, but with experiments and innovations spreading across new areas.

How transparent and accountable are AI policies?

We then tried to map and trace various ways in which you can potentially access information about these policies. Some may be proactively published by councils — such as policy documents— and some are legal routes to access— such as FOI or Data protection. Others are voluntary/mandatory schemes— like the Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard (ATRS) (not mandatory for local government but advised).

In 2024 the National Audit Office were concerned that accountability was a bit of a ‘patchwork’. Our analysis found the same, that there is a patchwork of transparency approaches. There are some signs of direct access, with published data (via data strategies) and FOI being the most common ways to find out. About a third of authorities have a published strategy/charter; eight have received FOI requests about this, and eight had mentions of it in meetings. The local media have played a role with stories. In terms of indirect access other less focused forms included publicity, trade media reporting and internal oversight from debates and council meetings. These tools created in turn varying degrees of data and transparency.

Transparency tools for AI use across London boroughs

Despite the London Office of Technology recommending a specific board of experts, few authorities have them (yet), with just four having one in place. The overall picture again is patchy and unclear – there’s no one fixed mechanism being put in place or used.

The patchy landscape of AI transparency in London is somewhat troubling if we consider that, in many respects, London is the least demanding test for public sector transparency. Its boroughs have been experimenting with algorithmic tools for some years, and that experimentation has unfolded alongside comparatively well-developed local scrutiny, for example through local media or via London’s universities. If a minimum set of transparency practices were going to take hold anywhere, one would expect it to be here with reasonable institutional capacity.

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Image: David Monaghan