Since the new Labour Government came into power there has been a lot of news about reforming the UK’s public sector. This has included announcements about more funding for police forces in the UK, budget for technology to aid efficiencies in the public sector and increased real terms funding for the NHS with high expectations of improved efficiency.
Advances in technology and the implementation of these funding pledges will have a profound impact on how diverse public challenges are tackled, with technology offering new solutions or altering existing approaches to improve outcomes.
Here are some predictions on how the team here at Pocketalk think tech can help to reform the public sector in 2025 and beyond.
Efficient integration in public services
Following Yvette Cooper’s recent announcement of a £500m funding initiative for UK police forces, there’s clear momentum to modernise outdated systems throughout the public sector to improve efficiency and accessibility. Moving forward the digital transformation agenda to get the most of tech to achieve this will be crucial to achieve this.
This could mean progress in integrating AI, blockchain, and other emerging technologies to further enhance public services, making them more personalised, efficient, and secure. Implementing these technologies can ensure the public sector remains at the forefront of digital transformation, delivering better outcomes for UK citizens.
Smarter AI deployment
AI will not act as a replacement for human roles but as a tool to empower individuals to focus on tasks only people can currently perform. This shift will prioritise resources and prove crucial in the public sector’s quest to improve efficiency by freeing up personnel, enabling innovation and enhancing human-centric services.
To this end, new legislation about AI was announced by the Government in the King’s Speech of 17 July 2024. The legislation aims to “seek to establish the most appropriate legislation to place requirements on those working to develop the most powerful AI models”.
For the public sector, we are likely to see initial progress on Labour’s manifesto commitments to use AI to improve the public sector more widely, modernise HMRC to help prevent tax avoidance, and use AI to transform diagnostic services.
Supporting students who speak English as an additional language
The education sector must leverage technology to redistribute resources and maximise budgets to address a range of challenges including language inclusion. The need is particularly pressing in large cities like London, Manchester, Birmingham, and Glasgow, which have a higher diversity of languages spoken by school children and higher education students. These cities attract people from various cultural backgrounds, leading to a wide range of languages being spoken in educational institutions.
For instance, the recently launched Pocketalk UK School Partner Programme is working with five schools that all have high numbers of English as an Additional Language (EAL) students – one school is almost 100% EAL – providing them with handheld language translation devices in all the schools The devices are being used to see how the students, teachers, school staff, and parents or care givers can benefit from a translation solution that is speedy, accurate and safe.
The results to date have been impressive, with teachers saying how much time they are saving prepping lessons and in the classroom and parents are now happily able to understand important communications and dialogue about their children.
Proving the value of tech through research
There is a profound need for more robust research initiatives to quantify the benefits of technology in sectors like healthcare and education to identify which solutions are viable, efficient and safe, to prioritise future investment.
Last year, Pocketalk devices were introduced as part of a five-month real-world validation study to evaluate how technology can impact care delivery in primary care triage settings for patients who do not speak English. This was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).
During the study, in five of the eight primary care settings, the device was used 100 times translating 18 different languages. The findings highlighted that the introduction of Pocketalk devices resulted in more efficient communication or dialogue, saving time compared to using other translation services. We can expect to see more similar studies in 2025 to prove the real-world value of innovative technologies in the public sector.
Ultimately, driving forward the implementation of these areas of technology by public services can help the Government to modernise the UK public sector to offer better services, better value for money and better outcomes for UK citizens.
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