Public Sector AI Task Force Meeting March 2025
Details
Welcome and updates - AI Policy, Scottish Government
The Scottish AI Alliance public AI literacy course Living with AI has now been relaunched. This is a free programme for anyone to participate in and is all about improving your AI literacy.
The adoption of innovation in Health and Social Care debate took place which was led by Neil Gray, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care. You can rewatch this on the parliament website.
UK Government has announced an overhaul to funding for AI and Digital work framed as developing smaller proof of concepts opposed to scaling up. This aims to save taxpayer money and boost public services.
There has been significant commitments to large investments in AI; The EU has announced the InvestAI initiative for developing four future AI ‘gigafactories’ across the EU for future AI infrastructure with a 200 billion Euro commitment
A Capgemini report on AI adoption said 86% of organisations are considering GenAI for customer service. Similarly a LangChain report said half of all businesses they surveyed used AI agents; systems that use LLMs with some degree of control or involvement in a process, with nearly 80% say they will actively use in the future.
Presentations
Royal Academy of Engineering – Engineering responsible AI
Through the National Engineering Policy Centre, the Academy have recently published a report setting out foundations for environmentally sustainable AI.
This report considers the environmental harms from AI systems, looking across the value chain at water, energy and critical material usage. With high ambitions for AI adoption, it is anticipated these will increase, putting pressure on resources which other parts of the economy rely on.
This report proposes five foundational steps that can be taken by governments to begin progress towards environmentally sustainable AI. These foundational steps will help guide the UK towards a more sustainable future with AI.
In order to deliver net gains from AI, public sector organisations should be embedding environmental sustainability in AI policy, procurement and support programmes will encourage proportionality and efficiency from data centre operators; hardware manufacturers; and AI providers, producers, partners and users.
British Standards Institute – AI Priorities
The British Standards Institution (BSI) is the National Standards Body, appointed by UKG, and is responsible for developing national standards to support government policies, tackle future challenges and deliver trust for the benefit of all sectors and society. BSI also represents UK interests in international standards through our membership of global and European standards organisations.
BSI has a strong presence in Scotland, engaging daily with stakeholders across government, industry and academia, and have previously worked with the Scottish AI Alliance.
BSI take a human centric view of AI and cyber security through a Socio technical philosophy with a balance on efficiency and humanity
The BSI standard 42001 series provides a framework with uniform language as best practice. All have a foundational standard and how these fits into the environment and culture of the organisation.
The same four considerations of foundation, data, skills, and risk make up the standards. An iterative approach is being taken to develop standards as new AI developments change quickly which allow standards to be developed within 9 months.
Working Groups
Education and Skills
Governance, Regulation and Standards