Councils are using robots to answer phone calls from residents despite raising council tax by the maximum amount in April.
Local authorities are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) to listen to and answer phone calls in a bid to save millions of pounds each year.
However, the loss of human interaction has not resulted in savings for taxpayers, who have seen bills rise by up to 5pc.
The Telegraph has identified six councils where residents can expect to have their calls answered by AI – with one council claiming their use of bots would save up to £12.5m a year.
Campaigners questioned why savings were not being passed on to taxpayers, while others criticised the decline in human interaction – describing the switch to AI as “depressing and demoralising”.
All of the councils that have introduced AI assistants to respond to phone calls said that human staff remained in their call centres and that the software was designed to refer complex queries to human handlers.
Telford and Wrekin Council, an authority which provides services to 180,000 people in Shropshire, created its AI assistant “Ask Tom” in 2021. It initially operated as a chatbot to help answer questions on its website.
However, last year it expanded the software’s capabilities so that “Tom” would be able to answer, listen, speak and send information directly to residents’ devices.
Councillor Richard Overton said “Tom” was “part of our wider campaign to encourage customers to engage with us digitally rather than by phoning us in the first instance”.
He added that the council was very impressed with the efficiency savings the software had made so far.
Despite this, Telford and Wrekin Council increased council tax by 5pc in April, meaning the bill for a Band D property rose from £1,536 to £1,613.
Combined with additional charges for the police and crime commissioner, fire rescue authority and parish council tax, residents faced a 5.34pc rise, an increase of £109 for a Band D home.
Derby City Council created “Darcie” and “Ali”, AI bots to answer phone calls and respond to website enquiries, in 2023. The firm behind the software claimed the AI had so far managed 750,000 queries and saved the authority £200,000 each year.
The council said it also had plans to expand the roles of its AI bots so that they could process emails more quickly and recover outstanding debts. The council estimated it would save £12.5m annually once fully implemented.
AI answering over half of phone calls
Teething problems remain, however, with BBC Derbyshire recently revealing the AI-run phone lines struggled to understand local dialects and had incorrectly rejected questions about council services.
A spokesman for the council said the technology was successfully answering 58pc of calls after a recent update.
AI bots for Derby City Council reportedly struggled to understand local dialects and incorrectly rejected questions about services – eye35 / Alamy Stock Photo
The minority Labour-led authority attempted to pass a 5pc council tax increase this year – but after opposition parties rejected the rise, the authority settled on a 4pc increase. It pushed council tax bills for a Band D property up from £1,551 to £1,629 a year.
Breckland Council in Norfolk launched “Bobbie, the Phone Bot” last year. The Conservative-run district council agreed a 4.36pc increase for taxpayers this year.
Next month, South Norfolk Council and Broadland District Council will introduce their own AI bots to answer “routine enquiries” over the phone, despite some councillors fearing the technology could be “irritating” for those who want to speak to a human.
Hillingdon Council in London has also announced plans to roll out its own AI bot to answer calls, in an attempt to “enhance resident services”.
‘Depressing and demoralising’
Silver Voices, a campaign group for older people, said older and vulnerable residents would suffer as a result.
Dennis Reed, of the non-profit, said: “People are increasingly complaining that they are getting less and less in terms of council services but more and more council tax. This is another aspect of that.
“There is something worth preserving in a human conversation.
“Even in a short telephone call you can form a personal relationship on that particular issue and know that somebody is being sympathetic and listening to you, answering your difficult questions. That can’t be done through artificial intelligence.
“Certainly for older people, who may be lonely anyway and don’t talk to human beings very often, to face this every time they make a call to an organisation like the local authority is depressing and demoralising.”
Joanna Marchong, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, added: “While councils are quick to increase bills to the maximum, they’re replacing frontline staff with AI chatbots. If these cost-cutting measures are genuinely saving millions, taxpayers should be seeing that reflected in lower bills and better services.
“Ministers must ensure councils deliver value for money and remember that local services are for people, not just for the balance sheet.”
Breckland, South Norfolk, Broadland District and the Hillingdon local authority were all approached for comment.
Telford and Wrekin councillor Zona Hannington said: “By using technology to handle these relatively simple queries, we enable our staff to concentrate on more important issues, meaning we can help more people, more rapidly. It makes us more efficient and more effective for our residents, who can now access a wider range of council services 24 hours a day.”
Derby City Council councillor Hardyal Dhindsa, said: “We have had years of national cuts to local government funding, which has meant reductions to services and jobs. AI has helped to mitigate the effects of this in Derby, compared with other councils.
“We actively consult our communities to test both our digital and non-digital services for inclusion.
“Darcie ensures that residents can access information and support at any time, including evenings, weekends, and public holidays and without having to wait in a call queue.”
