UK Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG)
Laying the foundations for better local public services
Local AI is an MHCLG programme that supports councils to adopt artificial intelligence (AI) safely, responsibly and at scale.
Our goal is to accelerate the responsible use of AI across local government to improve services for people and communities, increase efficiency and reduce costs.
We work with councils to build reusable tools, share learning and reduce duplication, helping successful approaches scale across the sector.
We work with councils, the Local Government Association (LGA) and cross-government partners to:
We work with councils to tackle shared challenges in some of their most pressured services, including:
We are working with workstreams across government including:
The Mayoral Data Council brings together Mayoral Strategic Authorities and central government to improve data sharing and use. It supports better data quality, stronger local capability, and ensures local government expertise shapes national approaches to data and AI.
We are working with councils across England to support responsible use of AI adoption turning ethical principles into local government practice, supporting knowledge sharing among councils and building skills and capability.
We provide clear guidance, practical tools and coordination to help councils use AI in a way that is proportionate, transparent and worthy of public trust.
The Local Transcribe tool helps frontline council teams focus on delivering a caring service by recording, transcribing and summarising conversations.
It is being built with councils, with an initial focus on housing, to help frontline staff spend more time building relationships and delivering the services that matter most.
We are working with councils to identify where AI can have the greatest impact across local services.
This includes exploring new use cases, learning from existing innovation, and identifying opportunities to develop tools and approaches that can be reused and scaled across the sector.
Find out more about our areas of interest.
Local AI takes a user‑centred, evidence‑driven approach.
We work with councils to understand service challenges and identify where AI can have the greatest impact.
We carry out discovery and prototyping projects in high-pressure service areas, including supporting the scaling of tools where appropriate.
We also work across local and central government to support the safe, ethical and sustainable use of AI.
To stay up to date with our work and opportunities to get involved, you can:
Read the latest updates, case studies and insights from Local AI on the MHCLG Digital blog.
