The Treasury is calling on the Blair think tank to provide advice on the use of AI across public services

Ministers have brought in Tony Blair’s think tank and private technology companies to guide them in deploying AI across the UK government, which activists say is like “inviting foxes to consult on the future of the henhouse”.

James Murray, principal secretary of the Treasury, chaired a meeting on Wednesday with the director of AI at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), the chairman of IBM and senior executives from AI companies including Faculty AI, now part of Accenture, and Dex Hunter-Torricke, a former communications consultant at Google, Facebook and Elon Musk’s Space X.

“These people are exactly the ones who can help us deliver change across the public sector. They give us the hard truths about our approach to AI and give us advice on where we need to prioritize our investment to support real efficiencies,” said Murray, who said their advice “will feed into efficiency processes ahead of the next spending review.”

The move comes after Technology Minister Liz Kendall last month…