The Covid-19 coronavirus crisis is accelerating the pace of digital transformation among companies of all shapes and sizes, and the public sector is no exception, as decision-makers rally to find digital solutions to meet fast-changing requirements despite underlying legacy challenges. While the immediate focus is to limit the human, social and economic loss, operating in the "new normal" will mean extra pressure on IT in the months to come. Public sector bodies need to use digital channels to inform and serve citizens, while at the same time, many functions have gone all-digital during the coronavirus outbreak, increasing demand for efficient back-end systems. The pandemic has exposed the need to improve technology efficiency for the continuity of government. Computer Weekly spoke to specialists operating in the public sector to gain an overall view of the key trends and hurdles facing buyers as the crisis unfolds.

A report into the use of artificial intelligence by the U.K.'s public sector has warned that the government is failing to be open about automated decision-making technologies which have the potential to significantly impact citizens' lives. Ministers have been especially bullish on injecting new technologies into the delivery of taxpayer-funded healthcare -- with health minister Matt Hancock setting out a tech-fueled vision of "preventative, predictive and personalised care" in 2018, calling for a root and branch digital transformation of the National Health Service (NHS) to support piping patient data to a new generation of "healthtech" apps and services. He has also personally championed a chatbot startup, Babylon Health, that's using AI for healthcare triage -- and which is now selling a service in to the NHS. Policing is another area where AI is being accelerated into U.K. public service delivery, with a number of police forces trialing facial recognition technology -- and London's Met Police switching over to a live deployment of the AI technology just last month. However the rush by cash-strapped public services to tap AI "efficiencies" risks glossing over a range of ethical concerns about the design and implementation of such automated systems, from fears about embedding bias and discrimination into service delivery and scaling harmful outcomes to questions of consent around access to the data sets being used to build AI models and human agency over automated outcomes, to name a few of the associated concerns -- all of which require transparency into AIs if there's to be accountability over automated outcomes.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) could add a whopping £654bn to the UK economy, according to a report published by Accenture. Perhaps this is why the government announced late last week that it would pump approximately £20m into developing and researching AI and robotics as part of its long-awaited Digital Strategy. The technology, which could potentially render almost half a million public sector workers unemployed over the next 15 years, has been credited with helping organisations save time and money – both attractive propositions for governments across the globe. With this in mind, here are four examples of how the UK public sector has delved into the world of AI in recent times. The Serious Fraud Office used AI for the first time in its landmark investigation of Rolls Royce, which saw the car manufacturer found guilty of bribery and corruption in January this year.