The National School of Government and Public Services has opened its first dedicated residential campus in York, with AI and digital skills among its training priorities.
The campus will provide training for civil servants and public sector leaders as part of a wider effort to strengthen government capability and improve public sector productivity. Further regional hubs are planned across the country, alongside digital access to learning. The approach is intended to make training available closer to where civil servants live and work.
The school’s curriculum will cover leadership, management, innovation, devolution and national security, alongside AI and digital skills. AI-focused courses will span practical applications for frontline staff, including reducing clerical workloads, through to specialist cloud engineering skills needed to develop and deploy technology across government.
The breadth of the curriculum reflects the different capabilities needed to introduce AI into public services, from staff using tools in everyday work to technical teams building and operating them. Cabinet Office Minister Mark Ferguson (pictured), who opened the campus, said: “The opening of the new school is a unique opportunity to upskill civil servants in the areas that matter most.”
He identified AI as one of the school’s leading priorities, linking the launch to the government’s ambition to accelerate the delivery of digitally enabled public services.
The Cabinet Office pointed to existing public sector applications as examples of the opportunities the training could support. These include an A&E demand forecasting tool used across 50 NHS organisations to help hospitals anticipate busy periods and plan staffing. It also highlighted plans to introduce AI tutoring tools in schools, linked to the government’s target to halve the attainment gap for disadvantaged pupils.
Alongside developing skills, the school is intended to reduce reliance on externally purchased training. The Cabinet Office said bringing more provision in-house would lower external training spending over time as the institution becomes established.
The launch sits alongside wider government plans to halve spending on external consultants and reduce departmental administration costs by 16% over five years. Those broader measures are intended to deliver annual savings of more than £2 billion by 2030.
The school is also partnering with the Civil Service’s annual One Big Thing learning initiative, which this year focuses on “AI in Action”. Building on last year’s foundational AI training, completed by 221,000 civil servants, the initiative aims to help staff apply AI practically in their daily work. It encourages colleagues across policy, communications, corporate services and operational delivery to identify opportunities to improve productivity and public services, developing the skills to use AI safely and responsibly.