The UK government loves to talk about AI. There’s the “AI Playbook,” the “AI Opportunities Action Plan,” grand visions of Britain becoming a global leader in responsible AI, and plans for “AI Growth Zones” sprouting data centres across the country.

Here’s the problem: all of this ignores who’s actually going to make it happen.

Local government employs about 18% of the UK’s total workforce and touches nearly every citizen’s life - from social care to bin collections to planning decisions. Yet as a new report from Browne Jacobson argues, Westminster keeps treating AI as a Westminster buzzword while neglecting the fact that the real work happens at the local level.

The local AI gap

The UK’s devolution agenda means mayoral combined authorities and councils now have real power - over skills budgets, freeports, and planning decisions. But they also lack the infrastructure, data literacy, and funding to actually use AI effectively. The government’s “National Data Library” ambition sounds great until you realise Britain has historically been terrible at collecting consistent data across public services.

There’s also the small matter of public trust. The West Midlands Police incident where AI-generated false intelligence led to disastrous decisions didn’t just produce a bad outcome - it undermined trust in institutions that are already struggling. Trust that matters enormously as AI use expands.

What actually works

The report points to some genuinely interesting pilots. The “Waves” project - a collaboration between Google, think tanks Damos and New Local, and councils in Camden and South Staffordshire - is testing how AI can improve citizen participation in local decisions. The idea is to identify where people agree, where they don’t, and how trade-offs can be mutually agreed. It’s not about AI making decisions - it’s about AI helping humans make better decisions together.

That’s the kind of use case that could actually work: narrowly defined, locally led, focused on augmenting democratic engagement rather than replacing human judgment.

The bottom line

The UK’s AI strategy will remain a collection of nice PDFs until the government frankly acknowledges that most AI adoption happens at the local level - through council workers, NHS staff, and planning officers who need the skills, data, and trust to use these tools responsibly. Walking before running would be a start.