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Written Question
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Artificial Intelligence
Thursday 24th March 2022

Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 13 November 2020 to Question 112077, Artificial Intelligence, what progress has been made with each of the items listed.

Answered by George Freeman

A progress update where available (in italics) on each of the items in the answer I gave the Hon. Member on 13 November 2022 to Question 112077 can be found below.

BEIS are exploring AI and machine learning techniques internally to enable more efficient working. Projects are being

(i) Undertaken:

  • A proof of concept for the use of virtual assistants to help staff find information regarding corporate policies, whereby the assistant will improve by learning from the enquires responses. An HR chatbot was developed as a proof of concept.
  • Planning a proof of concept using Machine Learning for automatic labelling, setting up retention periods for past and future documents that form the official record. A small-scale proof of concept was undertaken in Spring 2021 using a "machine teaching" tool to automate content processing and data classification to help identify information of value within a digital heap.

(ii) Considered:

  • The use of AI handling of inbound enquiries into the department to create draft responses and to triage requests to the correct teams. An enquiries service using an AI builder to automatically categorise emails was developed as a proof of concept.

BEIS Analysts use machine learning techniques, under the umbrella of artificial intelligence, where appropriate as part of analysis supporting policy development.

Machine Learning projects are being

(i) Undertaken:

  • Identifying the location of industrial strengths. Report on this has been published
  • Pilot for targeting communications about business support
  • Categorising internal documents by subject. Currently exploring feasibility for implementation
  • Project to understand the labour market through analysing job adverts. Methodology shared with OGDs and academics
  • A pilot for organising internal processes. Process implemented

(ii) Considered:

  • A pilot for predicting economic impacts using real time indicators
  • Exploring automatic text generation a pilot exploring natural language processing approaches for extracting economic intelligence
  • Planning to repeat a machine learning exercise on HMRC data to identify high growth potential businesses, to build on the successful ‘DECA pilot’ of 2019. This would underpin further operations in 2021, depending on the outcome of the SR process. DECA activities have pivoted to other government priorities.

BEIS policy teams are exploring the use of Artificial Intelligence. AI projects are being considered by the Better Regulation Executive who are looking to convert the stock of regulatory requirements placed on business into machine readable code and pilot hosting this as open source a metadata set on the ‘Open Regulation Platform’ (ORP), freely available on The National Archives GOV.UK platform. The project is currently in discovery phase to identify all data that government holds on regulatory obligations that could be relevant for this platform. This application is closely related to work that has already been undertaken as part of BEIS GovTech challenge to apply Artificial Intelligence (AI) to understand the cumulative impact of regulation. The Open Regulation Platform project is currently at the private beta stage.

Written Question
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Artificial Intelligence
Monday 21st June 2021

Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment they have made of the potential (a) threats and (b) opportunities of artificial intelligence in respect of their Department’s responsibilities.

Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury

Any spend by the Department on external facing digital services are subject to Cabinet Office digital and technology spend controls. Artificial Intelligence is treated as novel and contentious, and as such subject to additional scrutiny. This means threats associated with any application of Artificial Intelligence by the Department will be considered and assessed as part of this governance process.

In July 2020, Cabinet Office tasked all government departments to produce an Automation Blueprint. As part of this the Digital directorate within the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy identified potential opportunities for the application of Artificial Intelligence. There are a number of projects currently being undertaken or considered by the Department, in some cases the progression will be dependent on availability of budget from next financial year. BEIS Analysts use machine learning techniques, under the umbrella of artificial intelligence, where appropriate as part of analysis supporting policy development.

Written Question
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Artificial Intelligence
Friday 18th June 2021

Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, to what extent their Department makes use of artificial intelligence in the implementation of its policies; and how much was spent from their Department’s budget on artificial intelligence in each of the last three years.

Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury

There are a number of projects currently being undertaken or considered by the Department.

BEIS Analysts use machine learning techniques, under the umbrella of artificial intelligence, where appropriate as part of analysis supporting policy development.

Machine Learning projects are being

(i) undertaken:

  • Identifying the location of industrial strengths;
  • Pilot for targeting communications about business support;
  • Categorising internal documents by subject.

(ii) considered:

  • Project to understand the labour market through analysing job adverts;
  • A pilot for organising internal processes;
  • A pilot for predicting economic impacts using real time indicators.

The Department’s expenditure on artificial intelligence in each of the last three years will only be obtainable at disproportionate cost.

Written Question
Deparment for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Artificial Intelligence
Friday 13th November 2020

Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what (a) artificial intelligence and (b) machine learning projects are being (i) undertaken and (ii) considered for his Department.

Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury

There are a number of projects currently being undertaken or considered by the Department, in some cases the progression will be dependent on availability of budget from next financial year.

BEIS are exploring AI and machine learning techniques internally to enable more efficient working. Projects are being:

(i) undertaken:

  • a proof of concept for the use of virtual assistants to help staff find information regarding corporate policies, whereby the assistant will improve by learning from the enquires responses
  • planning a proof of concept using Machine Learning for automatic labelling, setting up retention periods for past and future documents that form the official record.

(ii) considered:

  • the use of AI handling of inbound enquiries into the department to create draft responses and to triage requests to the correct teams.

BEIS Analysts use machine learning techniques, under the umbrella of artificial intelligence, where appropriate as part of analysis supporting policy development.

Machine Learning projects are being

(i) undertaken:

  • identifying the location of industrial strengths
  • pilot for targeting communications about business support
  • Categorising internal documents by subject

(ii) considered:

  • project to understand the labour market through analysing job adverts
  • a pilot for organising internal processes
  • a pilot for predicting economic impacts using real time indicators
  • exploring automatic text generation
  • planning to repeat a machine learning exercise on HMRC data to identify high growth potential businesses, to build on the successful ‘DECA pilot’ of 2019. This would underpin further operations in 2021, depending on the outcome of the SR process

BEIS policy teams are exploring the use of Artificial Intelligence. AI projects are being:

(ii) considered:

  • by the Better Regulation Executive who are looking to convert the stock of regulatory requirements placed on business into machine readable code and pilot hosting this as open source a metadata set on the ‘Open Regulation Platform’ (ORP), freely available on The National Archives .gov.uk platform. The project is currently in discovery phase to identify all data that government holds on regulatory obligations that could be relevant for this platform. This application is closely related to work that has already been undertaken as part of BEIS GovTech challenge to apply Artificial Intelligence (AI) to understand the cumulative impact of regulation
Non-Departmental Publication (Transparency)
Coal Authority

Sep. 24 2020

Source Page: The Coal Authority annual report and accounts 2019 to 2020
Document: The Coal Authority annual report and accounts 2019 to 2020 (PDF)

Found: At time of publication income levels are volatile We continue to work closely with the Deparment for

Non-Departmental Publication (Guidance and Regulation)
Closed organisation: Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS)

Apr. 22 2016

Source Page: Lighters direction 2016
Document: Lighters direction 2016 (webpage)

Found: Details This document presents a renewed direction given by the Secretary of State for Deparment for

Non-Departmental Publication (Research and Statistics)
Closed organisation: Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS)

Sep. 04 2014

Source Page: Attitudes to animal research in 2014
Document: Attitudes to animal research in 2014 (webpage)

Found: since 1999 by Ipsos MORI for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (\u003cabbr title=\"Deparment

Deposited Papers

Jul. 02 2013

Source Page: I. The National Adaptation Programme. Making the country resilient to a changing climate. 184 p. II. Adapting to climate change: ensuring progress in key sectors 2013 strategy for exercising the adaptation reporting power and list of priority reporting authorities. 32 p.
Document: 26-6-13_FINAL_NAP.pdf (PDF)

Found: BU3, WA5 Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP)OngoingDefra and the Deparment for Business