Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 17
18th Report - Use of AI in Government
Published 26 Mar 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Use of AI in Government All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
DSIT’s A blueprint for modern digital government also sets out a series of priority reforms. These include commitments to assess the optimum employment models and the competitiveness of the overall package for digital and data staff. To strengthen digital leadership, the blueprint also sets out plans to require all public sector organisations to have a digital leader on their executive committee and a digital non–executive director on their board by 2026.39 DSIT told us that chief digital information officers are “not sufficiently represented at the executive committee level”.40 34 UAIG0006, UAIG0010, UAIG0011, UAIG0018, UAIG0026, UAIG0028, UAIG0029 35 Committee of Public Accounts, Digital transformation in government: addressing the barriers to efficiency, Seventieth Report of Session 2022–23, HC 1229, 13 September 2023; Committee of Public Accounts, Challenges in implementing digital change, Thirtieth Report of Session 2021–22, HC 637, 10 December 2021 36 Q 26 37 Q 26 38 Q 25 39 DSIT, A blueprint for modern digital government, January 2025, p 24 40 Q 27 14 2 Supporting widespread adoption in the public sector Learning from AI pilots and scaling–up
From: Public Accounts Committee, 18th Report - Use of AI in Government (HC 356), 26 March 2025
Government response
Latest Treasury Minutes progress report to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Eighteenth Report of Session 2024-26
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026.
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Eighteenth report from Session 2024-26
Published 18 September 2025.
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Eighteenth report from Session 2024-25
Published 10 July 2025.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states that it agrees with each of the Committee's recommendations, setting target implementation dates between October 2025 and June 2026.
- On legacy technology, it agrees and says GDS will define "consistent metrics and methods" to measure the ongoing costs of legacy systems and the estimated cost of failing to remediate or replace them, with a target date of January 2026.
- On transparency, it is "aiming to publish" Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard records for all currently identified in-scope tools in government departments (not including arm's-length bodies) "by the end of 2025".
- On digital skills, it agrees and says all executive committees will be required to include digital leaders and boards to appoint digital non-executive directors "by 2026", with further detail in the forthcoming Government Digital and AI Roadmap.
- On scaling AI pilots, it agrees and says a proposal is "currently being developed" in the Public Sector AI Adoption programme, with a target implementation date of May 2026.