  There is currently considerable excitement within government about the
potential of artificial intelligence to improve public service productivity
through the automation of complex but repetitive bureaucratic tasks, freeing up
the time of skilled staff. Here, we explore the size of this opportunity, by
mapping out the scale of citizen-facing bureaucratic decision-making procedures
within UK central government, and measuring their potential for AI-driven
automation. We estimate that UK central government conducts approximately one
billion citizen-facing transactions per year in the provision of around 400
services, of which approximately 143 million are complex repetitive
transactions. We estimate that 84% of these complex transactions are highly
automatable, representing a huge potential opportunity: saving even an average
of just one minute per complex transaction would save the equivalent of
approximately 1,200 person-years of work every year. We also develop a model to
estimate the volume of transactions a government service undertakes, providing
a way for government to avoid conducting time consuming transaction volume
measurements. Finally, we find that there is high turnover in the types of
services government provide, meaning that automation efforts should focus on
general procedures rather than services themselves which are likely to evolve
over time. Overall, our work presents a novel perspective on the structure and
functioning of modern government, and how it might evolve in the age of
artificial intelligence.
