DSIT says AI tool could free up 75,000 civil servant days a year

Humphrey package’s “Consult” feature crunched more than 50,000 consultation responses in two hours, department says
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By Jim Dunton

16 Oct 2025

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has said that a new artificial intelligence tool for civil servants has the potential to save 75,000 days of staff time every year.  

It said that the “Consult” application, which is part of the civil service’s Humphrey package of AI assistance for officials, had successfully analysed more than 50,000 responses to Sir Jon Cunliffe’s Independent Water Commission in just two hours, and did so at a cost of £240. 

DSIT said experts had only needed 22 hours to check Consult’s work of categorising responses into themes, allowing for more time to focus on using responses to inform recommendations for their independent report. 

The department said that using Consult had “helped to speed up the government’s decision to abolish Ofwat”, which was one of the recommendations in Cunliffe’s final report. 

Digital government minister Ian Murray said the AI tool’s successful deployment on the Cunliffe review was an indication of its future cost-saving promise.  

“This shows the huge potential for technology and AI to deliver better and more efficient public services for the public and provide better value for the taxpayer,” he said. 

“By taking on the basic admin, Consult is giving staff time to focus on what matters – taking action to fix public services. In the process, it could save the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds.” 

According to DSIT, the government spends around £20m a year on the manual analysis of consultation responses. It gave a figure of 75,000 days of work for officials that are dedicated to the task.  

Earlier this year, the department noted that manually analysing responses to individual consultations could take months, and sometimes saw work outsourced to consultants at around £100,000 a time.  

Earlier this year, Consult supported the analysis of the Scottish Government’s consultation on non-surgical cosmetics. It was also used to sort responses to the Digital Inclusion Action Plan, which saw 800 people responding to the call for evidence. 

DSIT said the checking process for Consult’s work on the Cunliffe review consultation responses saw its crunch put side-by-side with detailed manual reviews of responses from stakeholders. 

The department said Consult’s findings were compared with those of two groups of experts, and that Consult agreed with one or both groups nearly 83% of the time, while the two expert groups only agreed with each other 55% of the time.  

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