Timpson: Real opportunities for AI
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is developing a chatbot, using artificial intelligence (AI), to help people resolve child arrangement disputes without going to court.
The MoJ is also considering how AI can be used to help court listing, assist HM Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS) process the 8m paper forms it receives every year and transcribe hearings in the Immigration and Asylum Chamber.
The projects are among a number of initiatives featured in the MoJ’s newly published AI Action Plan for Justice [1], which it describes as “a roadmap for safe and effective AI adoption in justice”.
The aim is to make public interactions with the justice system “simpler, faster, and more tailored to their needs”.
The MoJ said the chatbot to supports users in resolving child arrangement disputes would be operating in “a policy area which has a vast and confusing landscape of information”.
Responses from the AI chatbot, which has been trained on gov.uk data, provide users with guidance on alternative routes to dispute resolution which could support a reduction in “unnecessary” court applications.
On listing, the MoJ said it would explore how AI could “improve scheduling and make better use of resources”.
The MoJ said AI could “quickly create the best schedules” by analysing real-time data about staff, capacity, risks and priorities. The technology has already helped the NHS schedule surgical teams more efficiently and “could also help manage capacity in the justice system”.
Because AI could update schedules automatically as things changed, like cancellations or transfers, it reduced the need for manual rescheduling and avoided wasted time.
The MoJ said having its own validated AI transcription and translation tools had “huge potential” in the justice system, “minimising delays, improving access to justice and reducing reliance on costly external suppliers”.
HMCTS has conducted a 12-week pilot to assess how AI transcription of hearings and oral judgments could assist judges in preparing and writing decisions in the Immigration and Asylum Chamber.
“The technology could speed up manual transcription, enable transcripts where none currently exist, and improve public access to court proceedings. Early findings have been encouraging, and HMCTS is continuing to explore options to expand this pilot subject to funding.
“With a scaled transcription capability in place, there is significant opportunity for HMCTS to explore additional applications of AI, including summarisation, to support the effective and efficient administration of justice.”
The MoJ said HMCTS processed over 8m paper forms each year, with staff spending significant time manually uploading and reviewing them.
The MoJ piloted machine learning and computer vision technology to extract and analyse information from paper-based forms; it enabled “faster and more accurate processing, reduced the number of exceptions, and cut configuration costs”.
Again subject to funding, the plan is “to scale this capability across our bulk scanning service”.
To help staff find the right information in a “busy court environment”, the MoJ said it had successfully piloted a “generative AI knowledge retrieval assistant”.
Staff could ask questions using natural language and the tool interrogated “over 300 unstructured documents before returning a simple summary, accompanied by a citation to the source document”.
The plan also detailed AI use in criminal matters, such as how a violence predictor analyses different factors to help prison officers assess threat levels on wings and intervene or move prisoners before violence escalates.
Another AI tool will be able to digitally scan the contents of mobile phones seized from prisoners to rapidly flag messages that could provide intelligence on potential crimes being committed behind bars, such as secret code words.
The MoJ said general-purpose AI chat assistants, such as Microsoft 365 Copilot, ChatGPT Enterprise or government-built alternatives, could also support staff in a wide range of everyday tasks, from drafting emails and summarising documents to managing inboxes, redacting information, and generating reports.
In the Probation Service, AI pilots have already shown a 50% reduction in note-taking time.
The various pilots have produced “significant time savings” and improved experience for staff, “particularly for staff with neurodiverse conditions, accessibility needs, or low digital confidence”.
An ‘AI for All’ campaign would provide every MoJ staff member with “secure, enterprise-grade AI assistants” by December this year, accompanied by training and support.
The MoJ has established a Justice AI Unit, “an interdisciplinary team comprising experts in AI, ethics, policy, design, operations, and change management”.
James Timpson, lead minister for AI at the MoJ, said the three priorities of the AI action plan were strengthening foundations, embedding AI across justice services and investing in the people who delivered the transformation.
Since joining the MoJ in July last year, the minister said he had seen “real opportunities” for AI to improve the working lives of staff and colleagues and “clear evidence” of where it was already making a difference.