Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps they are taking to use (a) artificial intelligence and (b) data to help increase their Department's productivity.

The Home Office manages directly, and on behalf of operational partners, significant data assets measured in the tens of billions of rows of data and millions of data subjects. This data is used every day to deliver public services, manage performance and deliver insight into policies. Its careful use, including sharing with key partners, supports the delivery of the government’s objectives as a whole.

We are moving much of this data off legacy systems, including some up to 50 years old, and on to modern platforms. This is enabling improvement in the productivity of key operational activities, better performance management and improved strategic analysis. This is part of a broader programme of technology-enabled business change that supports productivity enhancements, through optimising business processes and improving safe and secure access to the data that staff need to perform their roles.

We already make use of well-established artificial intelligence and automation enabled systems within the Home Office to improve business delivery as part of overall digital improvements in the department. In addition, we are running a small number of Generative AI trials to test their potential for productivity and quality improvements. These are supported by changes in our processes and policies, to ensure appropriate guidance and controls are in place for responsible adoption.