At Wigan Council, we are passionate about innovation. We aim to provide the best services to residents and ensure efficiency.
A key part of our Progress with Unity plan is to transform the way we operate and ensure that everything we do is underpinned by data and insight.
We use technology and artificial intelligence (AI) as helpful tools to achieve our goals.
On this page, you can read more about our approach to using AI as an extra pair of hands to make sure that we are using these innovations responsibly and ethically.
What is Gen AI?
Gen AI is a type of artificial intelligence that can create new content. This new content could be in the form of text, images or even videos. It works by learning from a large amount of existing data and then uses that learning to produce something new and original.
Some of our teams are currently testing how we can use GenAI in our work.
Common uses can include:
- Sentiment analysis
- Summarising lengthy documents/volumes of data to pull out key themes
- Content creation to suit various formats (reports, newsletters, social media posts) using the correct tone of voice
- Creating content suitable for different audiences
- Converting meeting transcripts into formal minutes
- Quality assurance and proofing.
Using AI responsibly
We follow some key principles to ensure responsible innovation:
- People first: We are not looking to replace humans, cut jobs or automate decision making. We aim to help people to do their job faster and more effectively
- Listening to our staff and communities: Making sure any innovation is carried out in response to real problems and in co-development with our staff and community partners
- Rigorous testing: Possible solutions using new technology are rigorously tested by experienced staff before being introduced
- Extra pair of hands: AI should be providing an extra pair of hands for our teams and allowing them to achieve more, not replacing them
- Human in the loop: A human being will always be involved in any decision making to ensure data is accurate and reduce AI bias.
What does this mean for people who live and work in Wigan Borough?
- Improved service delivery as we will be able to offer faster and more accurate responses to your enquiries
- Improved quality of care as we will be able to remove some of the admin burden and allow our staff to focus more attention on people
- Better value for money as we will be able to save time and resources and allocate these to other areas.
Use of data
We place the utmost importance on protecting the data of our residents and we are using this technology in a controlled and safe manner under the guidance of our trusted IT partner Agilisys. We have guardrails in place to ensure secure, ethical and responsible use including:
- A GenAI Policy
- A GenAI Governance Group who review all scenarios and ensure that the relevant impact assessments are carried out and any risks are suitably mitigated
- A robust technical review of any solutions
- Rigorous testing
- Staff only using council approved AI tools to keep any information secure.
AI and decision-making
Our GenAI policy states that we must not allow GenAI to make any decisions and that humans must be involved throughout.
We view GenAI as an 'extra pair of hands' that can assist us but will not and must not replace humans. Our staff will continue to make sure any information we generate through AI is accurate and that any solutions suggested by AI are free from discrimination.
We are eager to explore the opportunities that this technology can uncover and hope that residents will trust us and join us on this exciting journey.