Devolution

Local Government in the Czech Republic During Two Recent Crises

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Dr Paul Joyce

A recent book on local government in Czechia offers valuable lessons for anyone involved in local governance, emergency planning, or public sector reform. The book, edited by Balík and Špaček, explores how local government responded to two major crises: the COVID-19 pandemic and the influx of refugees following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The editors describe Czechia’s  local government as “fragmented”. By this, they do not mean fragmented in terms of lack of coordination. Instead, they use the term in a structural and territorial sense: the country has a very large number of small municipalities. In fact, there are over 6,000 municipalities in Czechia, and the median size is fewer than 500 residents.

At first glance, this sounds like a recipe for weakness. However, the book tells a very different story. During both crises, support and coordination from the national government was widely experienced as slow, inconsistent and, at times, chaotic. By contrast, local mayors often stepped forward quietly and decisively to support their communities. As Balík and Špaček put it:

“Mayors of small municipalities rarely speak of crisis management in systemic terms; instead, they focus on immediate, practical solutions to specific problems… Small local governments tackled emergencies as they came with the capacities they had… The ability of small municipalities to adapt quickly and provide personalised assistance was critical in the early stages of both crises…” (2026, p.177)

In many places, local government was really the only consistent source of stability. One of the key strengths highlighted in the book is social capital – the trust, relationships, and local knowledge embedded in communities. This proved crucial, particularly during the refugee crisis:

“The strength of small municipalities was in the individual commitment, personal ties, and local knowledge—knowing who to turn to in case of problems and how to solve specific issues” (Balík and Špaček, 2026, p.176).

Even in very small towns and villages in Czechia, local government is present and visible. Mayors and councillors are highly trusted, far more than national politicians, and citizens see them as accessible, familiar, and reliable. In crisis conditions, this trust enabled rapid mobilisation of volunteers, associations, fire brigades, community groups and informal support networks.

Interestingly, the book also notes that although inter-municipal cooperation is voluntary and not financially incentivised by national government, over 80% of Czech municipalities are involved in some form of collaboration. During the crises, some mayors consulted colleagues in neighbouring areas, shared information, and worked through voluntary municipal networks.

However, and this is an important point, the book does not show that there was a large, coordinated, systematic collaborative governance response at national scale. There is no hard data indicating how widespread or effective inter-municipal cooperation was during the crises. What the authors do state is that cooperation was informal, uneven, and dependent on existing relationships and trust.

In fact, they emphasise that local responses were often “highly individualised”. In other words, municipalities generally acted on their own initiative, using their own judgement, knowledge and resources to solve immediate problems. Horizontal networks sometimes supported this, but they did not replace largely autonomous decision-making.

What stands out most during the crises is vertical incoherence: poor communication, unclear leadership, and constant change in guidance from central government. Mayors described regulations changing “three times a day”, written in legal language that nobody understood, and official information arriving after the media had already reported it. In the early stages of both COVID-19 and the refugee crisis, national guidance was often described as vague, delayed or non-existent.

As a result, mayors relied heavily on their own judgement and “common sense”. Why? Because they had to respond to reality as it unfolded in front of them. This leads to an important conclusion: Czechia was not “saved by collaborative governance” in a formal, system-wide sense. Instead, it was held together by local leadership, strong relationships, deep community knowledge, and trust.

Implications for UK local government

For those working in or with UK local government, the Czech experience raises important questions.

For years, public sector reform has often focused on scale, efficiency, and consolidation. We tend to assume that bigger organisations are stronger, more capable, and more resilient. The Czech case challenges this assumption. It suggests that in times of crisis, small, trusted, locally embedded structures can be incredibly powerful.

This does not mean the UK should “fragment” its local government system. But it does suggest that structural reforms aimed purely at efficiency can come at a hidden cost: the loss of proximity, trust, responsiveness, and local knowledge that make rapid, context-sensitive action possible.

The Czech experience also highlights the risks of poor vertical coordination. When national guidance is unclear or incoherent, the pressure falls heavily on local government. In those moments, what really matters is not the size of the organisation, but:

•           The quality of relationships

•           The level of trust

•           The strength of civic networks

•           The confidence of local leaders

•           The use of local knowledge

For the UK, the message may be this: alongside reform for efficiency and scale, we need to invest in robust governance, that is, in communication, trust, community capacity, and strong vertical relationships between central and local government.

Reference: Balík, S. and Špaček, D. (eds.) (2026) Fragmented Local Government Systems and Crises: Experiences from Czechia. Governance and Public Management Series. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan / Springer Nature Switzerland AG. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-01897-7

Paul Joyce is an Associate at INLOGOV, University of Birmingham, a Visiting Professor in Public Management at Leeds Beckett University, and Publications Director of the International Institute of Administrative Sciences (IIAS) which is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. He has a PhD from London School of Economics and Political Science

Intervention 3.0: Designing a Responsive Model for Local Government Support in England

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Jason Lowther / Paul Joyce / Philip Whiteman

The arrival of the new UK government looks set to result in a new policy on central government’s intervention powers in local authorities, the third generation of such policies this century.  This article suggests some key lessons from earlier models. 

Intervention 1.0 was facilitated by Best Value legislation that an “authority must make arrangements to secure continuous improvement in the way in which its functions are exercised, having regard to a combination of economy, efficiency and effectiveness” (Local Government Act 1999).  This remains the basis of statutory interventions today.  But the context could not be more different. 

The Blair government commissioned an extensive set of national performance indicators, developed independently by the Audit Commission with a common definition and quality assured through local audits.  The “District Auditor” role maintained in depth contextualised knowledge of each local council, and could identify and flag significant governance or performance issues at an early stage.  As well as diagnosing problems, the Audit Commission’s national studies provided evidence-based recommendations to help improve local services’ economy, efficiency and effectiveness.

The strengths of this model were the comprehensive nature of the evaluation, its collective and mutually supportive use of expert agencies to provide an evidence base, and the sanctions that went with it including transparent public reporting.  Inlogov produced a series of reports diagnosing and explaining the causes of poor performance, analysing recovery planning and strategies for organisational recovery, evaluating various policy instruments for recovery (such as lead officials) and identifying the key developmental mechanisms for recovery. 

Our reports clearly demonstrated that the context for poor performance determines effective mechanisms for recovery: one size definitely does not fit all.  The causes of failure are varied, such as ineffective leadership arrangements and inadequacies in the operating culture. 

Improvement mechanisms need to address issues of cognition, capability and capacity.  Cognition is the council’s awareness and understanding of their performance trajectory, which is often resilient to changes in political control.  Capability concerns the construction and institutionalisation of a change-oriented vision by council leaders.  Finally, capacity is the ability to deliver the required vision and change. The required change mechanisms are both internal (such as leadership change) and external (for example, peer mentors, expert advisors, and funding). 

Intervention 2.0

The arrival of the Coalition government in 2010 brought rapid changes to intervention.  The Audit Commission was summarily discarded, publicly justified by claimed savings of £50m.  In reality, recent research by the Audit Reform Lab at the University of Sheffield suggests that English audits have higher costs and greater delays than in Wales or Scotland (where centralised oversight arrangements were maintained). 

From 2010 to 2020, central government intervention was relatively rare with formal interventions in only four councils.  However, from 2021 this situation changed substantially with interventions in eight councils in three years (none of these councils were controlled by the ruling national party).  In the same three years, there were statutory best value notices in a further nine councils.

It’s fair to describe this phase of intervention as less structured and evidence-based, without robust national data or independent routine inspection of councils.    

There has been limited evaluation of Intervention 2.0 to date.  Our early research findings based on three case studies suggest a five-stage model of intervention: (i) crisis revelation, (ii) delegitimisation, (iii) imposed reforms, (iv) capacity building, (v) restoration or reorganisation.  We conclude that under localism interventions were not merely administrative responses to failure but were deeply political acts that reshaped the legitimacy and capacity of local governance. The Commissioners, acting as technocratic agents of central government, connected central and local government, and had the effect of buffering the political tensions of intervention, while leading a process in which managerial competence rather than local democracy steered intervention.

Where next for intervention?

The raft of interventions related to section 114 notices, the establishment of the new Local Government Outcomes Framework and local audit reform including the Local Audit Office indicate a new phase of intervention and open opportunities to develop a more systematic and evidence-based approach.  More thought is needed on how this should work in future, including the role of peer reviews and inter-council support arrangements.  The centralisation of intervention power and the dominance of technocratic intervention needs to evolve to suit devolution and to provide greater support for local democracy. This could build on the new audit arrangements through a “district auditor” type overview of governance.

The acid test of reforms should be that while central government would still be able to intervene when councils were failing, the intervention process would minimise the suspension of local democracy, do as little damage as possible to the public’s trust in their local council, and foster good local democratic political leadership.

This article first appeared in the Municipal Journal on 16 October 2025 titled “How not to damage democracy”. It is available here: https://www.themj.co.uk/damage-democracy

Dr Jason Lowther is director of INLOGOV (the Institute of Local Government Studies) at the University of Birmingham.  Prof Paul Joyce is an Associate at INLOGOV.  Dr Philip Whiteman is a lecturer on public policy and administration at INLOGOV.

Supporting councillors to thrive: the 21st Century Councillor Revisited

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Catherine Needham

In our research on the 21st Century Councillor, we’ve found that elected members are facing a barrage of challenges:

  • Perma-austerity has deepened with sustained underfunding of public services  
  • Complexity of place has intensified, through combined authorities and integrated care systems, alongside local government reorganisation.   
  • Communities are in distress, moving from the pandemic straight into the cost-of-living crisis   
  • Incivility in public life has grown with rising issues of abuse and harassment for councillors in particular 
  • The rising profile of equality, diversity and inclusion has drawn attention to how public services systematically fail some workers and citizens  
  • Remote and hybrid working can enhance individual flexibility but can make it more difficult for councillors to build the relationships they need to function effectively. 

From interviews with councillors, we heard about the strategies they use to cope with these challenges and to support their communities to thrive. They are keeping the system human on behalf of communities. They are zooming in and out, from the micro issues facing residents to the big strategic issues of place. They act as a lightning rod, absorbing hostility whilst keeping themselves grounded and safe. You can read more about the research findings here.

If you’re a councillor – or you work in a role supporting councillors – come and join us in Andover on 4 November to hear more about this research and chat to peers about how best to manage these challenges. You’ll also hear from the Local Government Chronicle about their new campaign to support councillors.

Click here to register: 21st Century Councillors Tickets, Tue, Nov 4, 2025 at 10:00 AM | Eventbrite

Renewing Democratic Leadership

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Jason Lowther and Sonia Bussu

Legislative Theatre with West Midlands Combined Authority

As local government in England undergoes significant restructuring, with fewer councils serving larger and more diverse populations, the role of councillors is under pressure. At the same time, democratic innovations, such as citizens’ assemblies, or creative methods of participation, such as legislative theatre and digital engagement, are gaining traction. These innovations offer new ways to engage communities and strengthen democratic legitimacy.  But how do they fit with the role of elected councillors?

Recent research and practice suggest that councillors can play a crucial role in facilitating inclusive and impactful citizen participation.

Politicians’ Views on Participation

Across the UK and Europe, many elected representatives have expressed support for citizen participation in policymaking. They see it as a way to build trust, improve decision quality, acknowledge a wider range of perspectives and knowledge, engage citizens more deeply in political life, and potentially identify novel solutions to politically difficult issues. However, research by Kersting shows that this support is often conditional. Councillors tend to favour participatory instruments that reinforce their representative role, such as advisory boards or structured consultations. They are more sceptical of online platforms and randomly selected citizen assemblies (so-called minipublics), which they worry may not be genuinely representative of their electorate and may lack the capacity to understand complex issues.

Werner and Marien’s comparative experiments in Sweden and the Netherlands provide further insight. Their work shows that participatory processes consistently increase perceptions of fairness. This matters because fairness perceptions are closely linked to trust, policy compliance, and perceived legitimacy. Importantly, these effects are not limited to winners (who support the outcome of the exercise); even those who lose in participatory decisions tend to view the process more positively than in purely representative settings.

These findings highlight a tension. While democratic innovations can enhance legitimacy, councillors often feel uncertain about their role within them. Without open discussion, clear support, and integration, these processes risk bypassing councillors altogether.

Reimagining the Role of Councillors

Inlogov’s 21st Century Councillor research offers a compelling framework for renewing councillors’ roles. It describes councillors as hybrid connectors who build relationships both online and offline, multi-level diplomats who navigate partnerships across governance layers, and system stewards who shape democratic innovation and institutional change.

To fulfil these roles, councillors need support. This includes help to understand democratic innovations and any potential concerns.  They need understanding of key areas such as facilitation skills and digital engagement, confidence in narrative-building around democratic innovation, access to mentoring from peers with experience of these approaches, opportunity to explore difficult scenarios, and chance to reflect on their practice. Councils must also empower community members to scrutinise participatory outputs, and help councillors to navigate tensions between citizen input, officer advice, and party lines.

The Camden Model: Embedding Participation

Camden Council offers a practical example of how participatory processes can be embedded within representative governance. The council has institutionalised citizens’ assemblies as regular tools for major policy development, including planning, climate change, and health and social care. Assemblies are commissioned by council boards, which commit to formally responding to recommendations. In the case of the 2019 Climate Assembly, all 17 proposals were endorsed and integrated into Camden’s Climate Action Plan, with the citizen’s assembly referenced throughout the document.

This approach demonstrates how local government can lead participatory processes, ensuring they are not just consultative exercises but integral to policy development. However, several recommendations from the Camden climate assembly extended beyond the council’s jurisdiction, highlighting the structural limitations of local deliberative processes in addressing systemic issues like the climate. Councillors could have played a stronger bridging role, helping to clarify expectations and ensure that recommendations were grounded in the council’s remit. Stronger involvement from elected representatives might have thus enhanced democratic accountability.

Inclusive youth engagement in policymaking in the West Midlands

There is much more to learn and do to make democratic innovations more inclusive and effective, supporting participation from historically marginalised groups, which tend to ignore invitations to participate in citizen assemblies or formal consultation exercises.

A recent example of inclusive approaches comes from the West Midlands, where the INSPIRE project, led by the University of Birmingham, used legislative theatre to engage young people in shaping youth employment policy. Legislative theatre is a method developed by Augusto Boal that uses performance to explore lived experience, test policy interventions, and co-create solutions. It involves watching a play co-created by the participants on real issues and based on their lived experience. During the event, an audience of community members and policymakers become spect-actors, acting out alternative scenarios, proposing policy changes, and voting on them in a public forum.

The University of Birmingham partnered with the Young Combined Authority and Youth Focus West Midlands to recruit a diverse group of 15 young people (14-17 years old) who, under the guidance of legislative theatre practitioners, developed a play about barriers to work experience and youth employment. Through performances and structured dialogue with policymakers, they co-created six policy proposals. These include reforms to careers advice, work experience, and employer accountability.

Crucially, policymakers were invited to participate not just as observers but as co-creators and champions. Their involvement can help bridge the gap between lived experience and institutional action, demonstrating how local government can play a central role in democratic innovation for social change.

Councillors as Democratic Innovators

Democratic innovations in Camden and the West Midlands are two examples of how local government can promote democratic renewal. Councillors can and should play more central roles in these processes, beyond party politics, to facilitate and nurture dialogue between citizens and institutions, ensuring follow-through on recommendations, and using committee structures to embed participatory outputs.

Rather than seeing participation as a threat, councillors can embrace it as a tool to strengthen their representative role and reconnect with communities. They are uniquely positioned to bridge the gap between citizen voice and institutional action. This requires a shift in mindset and practice.

Dr Jason Lowther is Director of Inlogov (the Institute of Local Government Studies) at the University of Birmingham, and was Assistant Director (Strategy) at Birmingham City Council from 2004 to 2018.  His research focuses on the use of evidence in public policy and central intervention in local government.

Dr Sonia Bussu is an Associate Professor at the University of Birmingham Department of Public Administration and Policy where she studies and teaches public policy. Her main research interests are participatory governance and democratic innovations, and creative and arts-based methods for research and public engagement. 

This article was first published in the Municipal Journal, 25th September 2025, available online here: https://www.themj.co.uk/renewing-democratic-leadership

Picture credit: Inspire Legislative Theatre, March 2025 – photo by Bucuria Maria Polodeanu – Insta: @reelmasterproduction

Cyclopean ‘local’ government and the end of local democracy?

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Chris Game

As with another quite recent blog of mine, it’s important to start with the alert that most of its style, structure and content stem directly from its having been written in the first instance not for an academic readership, but as a column for probably this week’s Birmingham Post. There are a few additions and subtractions, plus, barring a dramatically uncharacteristic Lowtherian intervention, one guaranteeable difference: the title.

At the time of writing this intro I don’t know for certain what the Post editor’s choice of words and punctuation will be – except that it won’t comprise nine words, including three longish ones. Space and layout, you understand. It will, however – because regular authors do have at least some bargaining ‘say’ – open with that key word that many/most Post readers will barely recognise.

To summarise the whole thing: here in Britain we already have, and in England, following last December’s devolution White Paper, are about to develop still further, a scale of ‘local’ government that makes a complete mockery of the term ‘local’; and the present Government, with no noticeable public consultation, is embarked on increasing that non-local size still further – to truly Cyclopean dimensions.

And, as I sought to explain to the Post editor, by introducing this concept, rarely if ever used in modern political debate, both the Post and I will become – well, you never know – possibly a little bit famous. Here’s the reasoning.

First, ‘Cyclopean’, used in the context of local government.  Ancient Greek, pretty obviously, it originally described an architectural style in which the walls, towers and other fortifications of ancient cities like Mycenae (a 70-odd mile day trip SW of Athens) were constructed from massive limestone boulders – of the scale shown in the accompanying illustration – fitted extremely closely together without apparently having been substantially reshaped and without use of mortar or cement. 

So preternaturally impressive were these city constructions – the hilltop Mycenae was perhaps the most famous, but there were numerous others – that the myth developed that they must have been built by the Cyclopes, a race of superhuman giants in Greek mythology, and the only humans physically capable of creating such constructions. Hence ‘Cyclopean’ – to describe the assumed method and scale of a city’s governmental architecture, not the size of its residential population.

Somehow, though, towards the latter end of the 3,500 intervening years, the UK has developed, to an almost unique degree, its own interpretation of ‘Cyclopean local government’. Yes, there are loads of large buildings – Birmingham’s Council House and Central Library for starters, the Octagon, etc. – but there’s no Cyclopean mystery about what holds them together. Put crudely, it’s the concrete and steel, not some mystical manpower.

The UK’s, and particularly England’s, modern-day local government and its latest structural ‘reform’ have become almost entirely about scale. Instead of referring to the governance of, or provision of services for, a particular local community and its unique character, England’s ‘Cyclopean local government’ currently comprises just over 300 ‘local’ authorities, with populations averaging 180,000 – which is hardly our (or anyone’s) ‘everyday’ usage and understanding of that term ‘local’.

And yes, averaging. Which, of course, would make Birmingham’s 1.2 million population ‘super-Cyclopean’ – and the West Midlands Combined Authority’s 4 million ‘Mega-Cyclopean’. Or ‘hyper-Cyclopean’, which I personally slightly prefer, suggesting something beyond the bounds of reason, or control. We’ll return to that.

Some quick comparisons or contrasts: average size of German and Italian municipalities is around 7,500, Spain’s 5,700, and France, albeit as exceptional in its way as the UK, 1,900. Yes, slightly under one-hundredth the size of our average, and, by chance, roughly the same as our smallest, the Isles of Scilly, arguably our one ‘municipality’ that wouldn’t make a mockery of the term ‘autorité locale’.

The rest of the world, or first-time observers, find our scale figures as extraordinary as the Ancient Greeks found Mycenae. They are naturally curious as to how we do anything purporting to be genuinely ‘local’ government on such a manifestly non-local scale, and, above all, why.  Good questions, but not for a local newspaper column. Indeed, not for the likes of us mere citizens and voters either, because no one’s bothering to ask us.

The major redesign of England’s local government is currently in the hands of Angela Rayner – Deputy Prime Minister + (in any spare time) Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.  An early action was to cancel – arguably “legally risky”, if not unconstitutionally (see Google– ‘Cancellation of 2025 English local elections’) – nine May 2025 county and unitary council elections, she/someone in the Government having decided that these bodies had had their day and there would be no room for them in her new, but still undefined, single-tier England.

Rightly describing the UK as the “most centralised” country in Europe (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn0xz4938z9o), Rayner’s apparent plan is to end central government’s micro-management by making ours, by a distance, the least localised – most Cyclopean – ‘local government’ certainly in Europe, if not the world (500,000 minimum), and, it would appear, without a great deal of consultation.

The ’plan’, in summary, represents the biggest and most transformative upheaval of English local government in my adult lifetime (sorry, you’ll have to work it out!), rushed/bullied through Parliament and local government itself with absolutely minimal consultation and consequential analysis. In short, modern-day Cyclopean local government.

Chris Game is an INLOGOV Associate, and Visiting Professor at Kwansei Gakuin University, Osaka, Japan.  He is joint-author (with Professor David Wilson) of the successive editions of Local Government in the United Kingdom, and a regular columnist for The Birmingham Post.

Picture credit: https://stock.adobe.com/uk/images/odysseus-und-seine-gefahrten-fluchten-vor-dem-zyklopen-polyphem/608942497

Do we need yet another body to help local government harness the potential of AI?

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Dr Caroline Webb, Dr Stephen Jeffares, and Dr Tarsem Singh Cooner

Does local government need a devolved AI service to help the sector successfully harness the transformative power of AI? A new paper from the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) thinks so.

In their recent report “Governing in the Age of AI: Reimagining Local government” TBI make the case that local government faces several significant challenges – there’s a growing backlog of people seeking support coupled withdwindling resources and two thirds of funds must be spent on social care. Satisfaction is declining. Over £1.8bn is spent by the sector on technology, but innovation is stifled by a patchwork of legacy systems. The solution TBI suggest is the universal embracing of AI tools, but which is orchestrated, curated, supported and (one day perhaps) exploited via the establishment of a Devolved AI Service (DIAS).

The adoption of AI by councils continues to accelerate. Vendors of these tools extol the positive outcomes of AI, suggesting that “the day-to-day tasks of local government, whether related to the delivery of public services or planning for the local area, can all be performed faster, better and cheaper with the use of AI” (p3).  The UK, they argue, could save £200 billion over five-years though AI related productivity improvements (p7).

Whilst AI undoubtedly has the potential to increase the efficiency of some public services, we must pause to ask is it really the panacea that it is being marketed as, and are some public services being unfairly targeted by technology firms looking to promote their products and capitalise on an emerging market?

There is a clamour in the social care sector for example, which accounts for 64.8 per cent of the total budget for local government in England, to develop AI tools that can offer significant time savings, with the rationale that workers can spend more quality time with clients and less time on completing paperwork.  TBI cite Beam’s automated note-taking tool Magic Notes, that aims to transform social workers’ productivity by saving them s up to ‘a day per week on admin tasks’. Yet without external scrutiny and verifiable evaluation, such figures are little more than marketing claims.

As these technologies are capturing and summarising meetings to support some of the most vulnerable members of society, there is a need for local councils to interrogate these marketing claims critically before committing to such AI tools.  Despite safeguards such as ensuring a ‘human in the loop’, if these claims are not thoroughly examined there is a danger that these technologies may serve to reinforce and perpetuate existing biases, pose risks to clients’ data privacy and safety, strengthen process-driven systems which undermine person-centred decision making, and erode the relational foundations on which these services are built.

Of course, AI has numerous applications beyond reducing the cost of resource intensive casework. It has the potential to address some of the most despised and most intractable local policy problems (potholes, mould, chronic pain, mental health waiting lists). But the desirability of these innovations should not cause us to forget that these technologies themselves are not neutral, and just as they can lead to positive outcomes, if they are misused or implemented without proper ethical considerations, then adverse effects are just as likely to emerge.

The proposed introduction of a Devolved AI Service may go some way to ensuring a set of standardised safeguards, allowing for a coordinated approach to AI adoption within public services.  This collective approach could reduce duplication, provide practical support for the implementation and evaluation of sector-specific AI tools and facilitate a collaborative approach to working with technology providers to improve their products.  However, is it necessary to impose another central regulator on Local Government? There is already considerable piloting and evaluation of AI tools being conducted at the local level. These sector-specific evaluations are facilitating opportunities for shared horizontal learning across organisations. But it is vital that these results are shared, and that the evaluative measures and methods being employed are not imposed by the vendor of the tool, but rather determined by the needs of the organisation and the people they serve. Such evaluation should also consider more than value for money or accuracy, but also the experiences of frontline staff and citizens.

Ultimately, irrespective of how we chose to oversee the integration of AI tools, we must not lose sight of the fact that these tools should only be viewed as ‘part’ of the solution to providing effective public services, not the ‘whole’ answer as some technology companies may lead us to believe.

Dr Caroline Webb, Dr Stephen Jeffares, and Dr Tarsem Singh Cooner are academics at the University of Birmingham exploring how AI is reshaping frontline public service. Combining expertise in social work, public policy, and digital ethics, they develop training and research that support practitioners to engage critically and confidently with emerging technologies. Their work champions ethical, human-centred innovation in public services.