CROYDON IN CRISIS: Without any advance notice, the borough’s bureaucrats have unleashed on the public an imperfect system to handle Council Tax enquiries. EXCLUSIVE by KEN LEE, Town Hall reporter
Live now!: how council staff were advised of the launch of the AI Assistant on the Fisher’s Folly intranet
The robots have started their takeover of Croydon Council. And so far, the council admits, they are only working properly 80% of the time.
Croydon Council is, of course, the local authority that bans its staff from finding out about what is going on in their own borough. It also seems to be a council that doesn’t want Croydon residents to find out that they are being used as part of an experiment for the borough’s bureaucrats’ new “customer-facing” Artificial Intelligence.
The council quietly slipped out an announcement in a remote corner of the authority’s little-read official website yesterday.
Croydon residents are to be guinea pigs in the cash-strapped council’s cost-saving trial – whether they like it or not. In internal memos, seen by Inside Croydon, the council even says that its flawed AI Assistant system is incapable of redirecting unsuspecting members of the public to a member of staff to help them with their enquiries.
On the council’s internal computer system today, they admit that their contact centre is under-resourced for dealing with the 1million enquiries they receive each year. The volume of calls is “putting immense pressure on service teams”, the council told staff on its intranet.
The “digital first” council does not even appear to be completely certain that information on its website is up-to-date or accurate. “The project group has been working closely with our Council Tax team to make sure our website content is up-to-date, accurate and as user-friendly as possible,” staff were told.
In the message to staff, the council admits that what they have unleashed on the public is not entirely reliable: “It currently works by searching the council website for the information it needs. This is why we have been working closely with teams to ensure our web content is as clear and accurate as possible.
“In its current format it can’t search for information beyond the council website and it can’t transfer residents to a contact centre representative if needed, although it can give them the contact details for onward support.
“As is the nature of this tech, with each iteration it’ll keep getting better and evolving as we go.” So that’s alright then.
Croydon’s AI Assistant is based on Microsoft Copilot. On its public-facing website, the council says: “Croydon’s AI Assistant pilot aims to help residents find answers to their questions about Council Tax more quickly and easily, using the information on the website.
Premature evaluation: the council’s £204,000 per year CEO Katherine Kerswell has unleashed an imperfect AI system on the public
“The council receives more than 1million contacts per year, and the aim is to speed up response times at a time when lots of residents want to quickly find information about their Council Tax.”
But here’s the rub: the council admits that in tests, its AI robots have only been successful for 80% of questions.
The potential for costly errors when handling residents’ Council Tax bills seems to be immense.
Staff have been told: “Where the assistant gives the wrong answer or comes back with nothing, it has mainly been due to our website not having the correct information or being unclear.” Hardly reassuring.
It might seem odd, even a little premature, to unleash on the public a system that can only be relied upon 80% of the time.
But this is cash-strapped Croydon, which has been repeatedly criticised by government commissioners for not making operating savings quickly enough.
Using AI robots was one of the more facile responses to that exercise.
There’s also potentially serious data protection issues arising from the council’s AI trial, especially if the coy council fails to advise residents clearly and in advance of how it is using their data.
On the council website, they say: “This is a pilot, so the council will be gathering lots of feedback and working with residents to see how the assistant works for them.” Hmmm.
And after Council Tax, Kerswell’s council is preparing for “a wider rollout across the website”.
Croydon’s biggest digital tool, Mayor Jason Perry, appears to be all for this robot-isation of the council’s already much-diminished services. “We are improving our customer experience across the board,” Tory Mayor Perry claimed, though no one believes much of what he says.
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