Bosses explain how AI could help Worcestershire County Council make savings

Bosses at Worcestershire County Council have been explaining how AI could be used to help the authority spend less.

It's planning to axe up to 100 roles as part of a huge cost-saving exercise.

Chief executive Paul Robinson said AI will take over “process-driven” tasks in multiple roles across the council.

This could mean answering phones to free up time for social workers.

Mr Robinson said: “It’s not that one job will be completely replaced by AI – 10 percent will be freed up by AI.

"We do that for 10 people, we’ve got the equivalent to one full-time person.

“So then if someone leaves, we can do exactly the same as we did before with nine people, not 10.

“Only if we don’t have vacancies – if we don’t have people leave, or retirements, will we move to the position of redundancy.”

He warned about using the technology carefully, because of limited resources at the council that could be easily overwhelmed.

Not everyone has praised the plans, however.

Councillor Richard Morris feels the authority has 'been here before.'

He said: "We’ve talked about bringing in technology but nothing happens.

"We cannot just keep moving the deckchairs around – we need to do something fundamental. I’m getting a real sense of deja vu here.

“We need to buy something off the shelf – we don’t have time to develop something.

“I’m onside – but we don’t have time to delay.”