The Guardian view on civil service reform: AI cannot conjure a capable state on its own | Editorial

Whitehall needs to change, but more technology isn’t enough. Opening routes to leadership would bring skills that are too often overlooked

The cabinet secretary, Antonia Romeo, called for an overhaul of a “reactive and risk-averse” civil service in her speech last Tuesday. Ministers planned a “radical shift” of powers, resources and accountability to regional and local government, which she said would leave Whitehall “leaner and more strategic”. As 80% of civil servants already work outside London, devolution promises to alter what central government does, not simply where it operates. Reinvention is in the civil service’s blood – ever since it was founded as a permanent, impartial institution in 1854. Even departmental boundaries, Dame Antonia said, are on notice, asking do they “remain optimal in an era of cross‑cutting delivery?”

This must be set against the civil service’s relative decline: it is ranked joint sixth internationally on one measure of public administration. To improve, Dame Antonia says the civil service must embrace AI. The efficacy of public service, she claimed, no longer has to be constrained by the limits of “human bandwidth”. That is an extraordinary claim. Technology can help speed up identifying someone at risk of homelessness – but it does not supply a home. Better administration and adequate resources need each other.

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