Could £150k robots be used to work out our council tax bills?
COUNCIL chiefs have spent almost £150,000 on hiring robot workers – despite claims they have imposed a series of job cuts in recent years.
In a move critics branded ‘cynical’ and ‘hypocritical’, bosses at West Dunbartonshire Council have invested in stateof-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) software.
The virtual employees will be able to carry out administrative tasks such as reading and understanding Word documents and emails, and inputting data into spreadsheets.
It is not clear whether they will be able to calculate council tax bills.
The creators claim the robots never sleep and ‘make zero mistakes’, all while ‘mimicking many – if not all – human user actions’.
The SNP council – one of the first in Scotland to buy and implement the technology – claims it will help to improve efficiency and relieve staff of manually repetitive tasks.
But critics fear the purchase will lead to the loss of jobs.
A source close to the council said the move came amid ‘a lot of fear about the council using the pandemic as an excuse to remodel departments and make efficiency savings – which this virtual worker seems to be a part of’.
Last night, opposition councillor Jim Bollan said: ‘This is an extremely worrying development and will mean more job losses on top of almost 100 the SNP council have already cut over recent years.
‘With one hand the SNP council are quite rightly congratulating our workers for going the extra mile during the pandemic, while on the other hand seeking to make more cuts to jobs.
‘This is cynical behaviour and hypocritical in the extreme.
‘The first I knew of spending £140,000 on software to create “virtual workers” was when a constituent brought it to my attention last week.’
Mr Bollan added that the ‘so-called project needs to be halted immediately and a report brought to the next full council meeting, where councillors can discuss the issue and make an informed decision’ about the plans.
The council revealed plans earlier this year to ‘streamline’ its processes, to plug an anticipated £5.6 million budget gap. Officials expected ‘management adjustments’ could mean the loss of around 22 full-time equivalent jobs. Tendering documents show it has spent £140,000 on virtual workers.
An advertisement describes the AI as ‘an emerging form of business process automation technology’. It says: ‘Using this technology, computer software is configured to allow virtual workers to emulate and integrate the actions of a human interacting within digital systems.’
It adds that ‘virtual workers are capable of undertaking many repetitive actions and simple decision-making actions currently being done by staff’.
London-based firm UiPath – which hopes every worker soon ‘gets a PC, internet, a mobile phone… and now a robot’ – has been awarded the contract. On its website the company sets out a futuristic vision for the workplace. It says the robots ‘manipulate applications just like humans do’.
It adds: ‘They interpret, trigger responses and communicate with other systems in order to perform on a vast variety of repetitive tasks. Only substantially better… A software robot never sleeps and makes zero mistakes.’
It goes on to say that the ‘robots are capable of mimicking many – if not all – human user actions’.
A council spokesman said no redundancies had been made and that staff numbers at the council had increased in the last year.
He added: ‘Automation is a key element of our digital transformation programme supporting new ways of working, particularly technology, to improve efficiency and effectiveness of our workforce.
‘The technology uses software programmes, integrated with existing systems, to automate time-consuming, manually repetitive tasks, freeing up employees to concentrate resources on jobs where a human touch can add value, such as on providing responsive services to our residents and partners.’
‘Cynical behaviour and hypocritical in extreme’