Auditors tell UK government to do the math before banking on £45B AI savings

UK government auditors are calling for officials to consider the impact of AI on the size of the workforce needed for the civil service and wider public sector. The National Audit Office (NAO) recommends civil service leaders to "reflect the impact of major technological change in their long-term workforce planning," including …

[Aladdin Sane]

Auditors tell UK government to do the math

Bet they didn't.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Auditors tell UK government to do the math

Bet they didn't.

Could be ...

That gets fixed quite easily:

Tell all the DHs pushing for this AI crap via that absurd "£45B AI savings" line that whoever signs off on it (including their estates / descendants) will be made responsible for the results.

That will make them think things over carefully.

.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Auditors tell UK government to do the math

That will make them think things over carefully.

Indeed, think whether they want that peerage as the UK rewards failure generously.

[Roland6]

Re: Auditors tell UK government to do the math

I suspect many have forgotten the spat of Busines Process Improvement/Transformation contracts signed in the mid 1990s. Basically, the BPI waas going to so assively improve things, the vendors were signing contracts based on sharing the cost savings achieved from the BPI project. Trouble was no one bothered to do the leg work and create a valid baseline, that included not only work actually being achieved but work that should be getting done. Several projects I has sight of there were no "savings", only interesting notes in the council minutes: "for the first time in n years we have been able to do a council tax reminder mail shot and follow up", "the backlog of applicatiopns has been reduced and the council is now processing applications within its SLA..."

But I suspect those leading the AI charge don't reember and so ay well be prepared to sign up to shoulder the project costs and take a slice of the head count savings...

[abend0c4]

Re: Auditors tell UK government to do the math

There's an almost adjacent article detailing the government's failure to get to grips with the more fundamental requirements of payroll and finance. I guess it's not the role of auditors to tell the UK government to learn to walk before it tries to run, but simply tracking failure on a project-by-project basis isn't going to shift the competence dial.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Auditors tell UK government to do the math

Perhaps they told them to "Check their sums", or perhaps to "Perform the calculations". They most certainly did *not* tell the UK government to "Do the math". They will have been conversing in English, *not* American...

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Auditors tell UK government to do the math

Did they check if there is anyone in the government capable of actually performing calculations?

By the way things look, I suspect they have adopted Vice method - scribble numbers on the wall and then throw dildo at it. Where it lands, it is the number to choose.

[Roland6]

Re: Auditors tell UK government to do the math

> Did they check if there is anyone in the government capable of actually performing calculations?

Could be a case of misplaced assumption:

Did they check if there is anyone in the government capable of actually using a calculator…

[MarkTheMorose]

Re: Auditors tell UK government to do the math

And looking at the NAO's report, they also didn't say "to realize productivity benefits..." They said 'realise'.

If they're going to put such quotes in an article, in quotation marks, El Reg shouldn't be messing with the spelling.

https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/government-workforce-planning-lessons-learned.pdf page 6.

[Sighs, and remembers when El Reg used to be written in the Queen's (King's?) English.]

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Auditors tell UK government to do the math

If they did, it would be to ‘do the maths’

… . or perhaps the arithmetic as this is basic adding up/subtraction/multiplication/division. Maybe a little statistical modelling.

[elsergiovolador]

Reflections

"reflect the impact of major technological change in their long-term workforce planning,"

That is indeed going to be reflected over wine and steak, NAO?

[IGotOut]

Re: Reflections

Yawn!

[ChoHag]

Re: Reflections

He's back!

[Bebu sa Ware]

"implications on staff numbers,the nature of work,and capabilities required to carry out that work"

^*Extractum digitorum !

Work out (a) what your department supposed to do, (b) what it actually does, (c) who does (b) as well as who ought to be doing (a), and then determine whether adding anything to the confusion - let alone AI - is not going to worsen matters.

I suspect even making a credible start on (a) is beyond the civil service.

If Mervyn Peake didn't partly model his Gormenghast on the UK civil service, then the service has probably plagiarised great swathes of his opus.

_{* Discworld Latatian or Canis Latinicus. Presumably: digitum extrahe !}

[Doctor Syntax]

"implications on staff numbers,the nature of work,and capabilities required to carry out that work"

(a) is straightforward, it's (b) that's difficult.

And why does the comment mechanism decide a title is too long when it's the "Re:" that it added itself that pushes i over the limit. Hint. Set the initial max length and modified max length to different values.

[breakfast]

Worth keeping an eye out for workforce liabilities too

Given the increasingly number of studies showing the cognitive harm that habitual AI users seem to suffer, organisations like the government should be considering whether pushing AI use on employees may expose them to future workplace safety compensation claims, and whether they're prepared to accept liability for that.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Worth keeping an eye out for workforce liabilities too

I would have thought that working under a number of previous PMs would already have caused more cognitive harm than AI could manage.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only AI

Social Media is even worse. The gubbermint has taken some steps to reduce the influence of anti-social media on the lives of our childred but IMHO, a heck of a lot more will be needed to thwart the evil of AI.

Ban all social media platforms until they stop being designed to be addictive.

[DaemonProcess]

TAX

These reports are nearly always subcontracted out to consultancies who have a vested interest in promoting the technology and presenting persuasive figures; but with caveats such as civil service staff cooperation and flat pricing.

We all know the pricing is going skyward and we need sovereign AI hosting in the UK that other governments cannot get sight of.

In addition, the decrease in tax and national insurance revenue that will come from steady ramp up of AI agents (and in future robots) will likely mean that a special tax on agents+robots will be required to pay for the huge increase in welfare.

[s. pam]

CIOs get handjobs

Every CIO who decides they’ve “gotta have an AI programme” on their strategic initiatives list should be fired after boltholing them. Less of course the CEO sector replaced the CIO to impress their shareholders with the savings in which case both should be dealt with in a similar manner!

[Magani]

A moment of your time, if you please

Dear Vulture Central,

At the risk of being labelled an old curmudgeon, can we please use proper English rather than the Transpondian version?

I come here because it's a UK-ish slant on tech. I can get US versions (and spellings) just about everywhere else.

Hence the creeping occurrence of 'math' into the usage of today's 'yoof'. Please update your spell checker.

[Steve Davies 3]

Re: A moment of your time, if you please

Some of us have been complaining about the USAification of this site ever since it moved to the USA and suddenly US spellings were the norm.

Until Trump throws this site out of Trumpistan, we are stuck with it. FSCK Trump and everything he sits down for.

[Sproggit]

Re: A moment of your time, if you please

...he falls asleep for.

There, FTFU

[Lanta]

Re: A moment of your time, if you please

Agree wholeheartedly for posts about the UK. Maths.

The Reg editors have insisted that 'murican 'english' is their standard, which would be fine... but which Usaians would be interested in this specific article?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just the magic souce du jour.

Big tech makes some magic sauce

Those twats that speak at conferences for a living promote magic sauce

Consultants stick magic sauce on their CVs

Boardroom believes wholesale everything about magic sauce because magic sauce does everything they ever dreamed of

Magic sauce is applied to everything without consideration, planning, thought or effort

Annouce success!

Turns out magic sauce isn't free, isn't magic and doesn't make everything better just by being in the room.

Pay off employees to cover magic sauce costs, don't really use magic sauce much.

Annouce sucess!

Rince and repeat every 10-15yr with new magic sauce flavours.

[Rich 11]

with new magic sauce flavours

And with new staff who weren't even old enough to read newspapers the last time this happened, everyone else either having quit in disillusionment or been forced out by higher-up arse-covering.

[dinsdale54]

Underpants gnomes

Phase 1) Introduce AI

Phase 2) ?

Phase 3) Profit!

[Pete 2]

Interview question

> The published efficiency plans do not provide details of how departments derived their expected workforce efficiencies

If or when a job seeker is faced with any of these stoopid interview questions about solving hypothetical problems, the best response is to pause for a second and then say Oh, I can give you an immediate answer to that

When the interview bites, with OK, what is your answer? respond with

I don't know (I never said I did, just that I could answer immediately).

Most public servants should respond in the same way to questions about efficiency savings - always just weasel-words for job cuts.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Interview question

Just that in civil service job cuts mean employing (in all but name) replacement workers from big consultancies / agencies at inflated cost (market rate + margin).

[Pete 2]

Re: Interview question

Indeed.

The vital difference is that consultants are paid for from the Capital Expenditure budget, while employees pay comes from the Revenue budget. a world of difference! (even though in the end it's the same money).

[Blackjack]

The UK Government doing math? I am sure that will go well.

[Steve Davies 3]

doing math?

The last person capable of that was made redundant in 2008. Since then, the government sums have never added up. That a big part of why we are in the deep, deep, deep hole that we are in today.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: doing math?

Nah they are still there but no one in management wants to hear numbers they don't like

[Wiretrip]

Hopefully they will take too long over this, and then miss the boat; that turns out to be the Titanic.

[Tron]

They will be paying more for it than they save.

But paying more to US tech companies and less to UK workers.

Then they will be getting less tax back, and fewer votes at the next election.

[steelpillow]

Reality check

There are no votes in maths

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Reality check

You mean the votes don't add up?

[Anonymous Coward]

Billions in savings? WTF?

We'll need those profits to pay all the people the AI puts out of work a few pennies to live on.

In time, AI will decimate millions of jobs. Anyone who thinks otherwise, please give us facts upon which you base your opinion. So far, in the USA hundreds of thousands of workers have been 'laid off' because of AI.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Billions in savings? WTF?

A lot of AI lay offs right now are AI washing of good old fashioned job cuts, possibly the majority.

Then we'll get the aspirational job cuts when management think AI will let them run at 200% with a skeleton crew.

Then we'll get round three when the AI dream doesn't pan out as they liked but they still have the subscription costs (which will have tripled) and they need to save money to pay for the AI that isn't working and or the new government taxes that have been raised to pay for the unemployed from the first two rounds. After all government will eventually act to save it's own skin if it looks like an unemployed mob is about to decorate the street lights with them.

[Eric 9001]

Re: Billions in savings? WTF?

I'm not confident LLM's are going to decimate jobs, considering every time an LLM is used for something that is actually important, more people soon need to be hired to clean up the mess.

As for the USA, it's not like such businesses actually use LLM's (the ones that do, like uber, have burnt millions of dollars worth of tokens, to achieve pretty much no "new customer features") - that was just the excuse to lay off hundreds of thousand of workers.

Yes, the obsession with forcing everyone to be employed full time, has made many jobs equivalent to one group digging a hole and another group filling it up - clearly laying off both groups would have no real business impact and of course it would be claimed that LLM's allowed for less employees.

[damo2929]

yanks and there AI

You can tell this was written by an American using AI the spelling and grammar have all been changed to the US versions, despite the fact that the NAO always uses British English.

It's disappointing that it hasn't been quoted properly.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: yanks and there AI

Muphry's law strikes again.

[Lanta]

Re: yanks and there AI

Their there, we should assume they're spelling was deliberate.

[Lee D]

Nope

I will bet a significant amount of money that all the "savings" we see from AI in government will be wiped out by... the cost of AI in government.