About

The Public Policy Programme at The Alan Turing Institute was set up in May 2018 with the aim of developing research, tools, and techniques that help governments innovate with data-intensive technologies and improve the quality of people’s lives.

We work alongside policy makers to explore how data science and artificial intelligence can inform public policy and improve the provision of public services. We believe that governments can reap the benefits of these technologies only if they make considerations of ethics and safety a first priority.

In 2019, The Alan Turing Institute’s Public Policy Programme, in collaboration with the UK’s Office for Artificial Intelligence and the Government Digital Service, published the UK Government’s official Public Sector Guidance on AI Ethics and Safety. This document provides public sector organisations with the Process-Based-Governance (PBG) Framework, a framework for applying principles of AI ethics and safety to the design, development, and deployment of algorithmic systems, outlining how AI project teams can put ethical values and practical principles into practice across the AI project lifecycle.

From 2021 to 2023, the guidance was updated and expanded. This update includes the development of the AI Ethics and Governance in Practice Programme, a bespoke programme designed to equip the public sector with tools, training, and support for adopting the PBG Framework and carrying out projects in line with state-of-the-art practices in responsible and trustworthy AI innovation.

The Programme

The AI Ethics and Governance in Practice Programme curriculum is comprised of a series of eight modules. The modules cover how to implement a key component of the PBG Framework. These include:

• Sustainability
• Fairness
• Responsible Data Stewardship
• Safety
• Explainability
• Accountability

Each module also focuses on a specific sector, so that case studies can be used to promote ethical reflection and animate the Key Concepts.

Taken together, the workbooks are intended to provide public sector bodies with the skills required for putting AI ethics and governance principles into practice through the full implementation of the guidance. To this end, they contain activities with instructions for either facilitating or participating in capacity-building workshops. 

Please note, these workbooks are living documents that will evolve and improve with input from users, affected stakeholders, and interested parties. We need your participation. Please share feedback with us at [email protected].

This work was supported exclusively by the Turing’s Public Policy Programme. All research undertaken by the Turing’s Public Policy Programme is supported entirely by public funds.

Intended Audience

The workbooks are primarily aimed at civil servants engaging in the AI Ethics and Governance in Practice Programme; either as facilitators delivering the curriculum within their organisations by running peer-learning workshops, or as participants completing the programme by attending workshops. Anyone interested in learning about AI ethics, however, can make use of this open-access programme.

The full list of contributors can be found on the Acknowledgements page of each module.