What Happened at the Clerks AI Day, Milton Keynes:
On Tuesday 7 July we spent the day at Campbell Park Community Council in Milton Keynes with clerks, deputy clerks, RFOs, officers and councillors from across Milton Keynes, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire and Hertfordshire. The brief was the same as every Clerks AI Day: a practical, hands-on day of AI for town and parish councils — real council scenarios, not generic technology demos.
Delegates came from councils of every size, from Soulbury Parish Council to Biggleswade and Towcester Town Councils, and our thanks go to Campbell Park Community Council for hosting us in The Chamber.
The Verdict From the Room:
The feedback forms went out at the end of the day, and the results speak for themselves. Every delegate who responded rated the day 4 or 5 out of 5, and nearly all of them told us the content was very relevant to their work. But it’s the written comments that tell the real story — the value was in getting hands-on.
- “The opportunity to try out the tools in real time — being able to more accurately assess the long-term usage and value for money.”  — Clerk, Woughton Community Council
“Confidence in using AI, and how to use it as a tool to save time and to better advise council.” — Deputy Clerk, Towcester Town Council
“Learning about prompts and how to get a more detailed and tailored answer.” — Clerk, Biggleswade Town Council
Planning Took Centre Stage:
If one theme dominated the day, it was planning. We were joined by Louise Stubbs, Planning Consultant at ONH Planning For Good — a former officer at Buckingham Town Council and a serving councillor, so she knows exactly where planning work lands on a clerk’s desk.
Louise’s session covered the areas where town and parish councils feel planning pressure most: responding to planning applications, running consultations, neighbourhood planning, and making sense of S106 agreements. It ran for well over an hour with questions throughout, and the discussion carried straight on into lunch — always the sign of a session that hit the mark.
What made it more than a talk is that delegates could put it into practice straight away. The ONH Planning Assistant was switched on inside GovAssist for everyone in the room, so in the afternoon workshop clerks were working through real planning scenarios — summarising application documents, drafting consultation responses and pulling the relevant detail out of lengthy reports.
One deputy clerk told us the ability to compare documents while teaching the assistant about your own council “will be useful for big documents like tenders and large planning applications” — which is exactly the point. AI for town and parish councils works best when it takes on the long, dense reading that eats a clerk’s week.
Hands-on With GovAssist
The morning opened with governance and risk — the ground rules every council should have in place before AI touches council work — and then moved straight into GovAssist, the AI platform built for the council sector and now used by nearly 600 councils. Delegates set up their accounts, tried the assistants against their own council’s documents, and worked through prompting techniques with the team.
There was also a first look at GovRedact, for redacting names and sensitive detail before publication, and GovMeetings, for AI-supported agendas, minutes and committee management — both of which featured heavily in the “tell me more” boxes on the feedback forms. And delegates at Milton Keynes had something extra: a live-streamed Clerks Forum session running in parallel, delivered by Chief Executive Michael Bracey.
What Delegates Want Next:
The improvement suggestions were as useful as the praise, and they’ll shape the next event: more time to consolidate after each demo, slides shared in advance, and pre-loaded council documents so the workshops start faster. Several delegates also asked for a more advanced follow-on session — a good problem to have, and one we’re already thinking about.
Join Us At The Next One:
The improvement suggestions were as useful as the praise, and they’ll shape the next event: more time to consolidate after each demo, slides shared in advance, and pre-loaded council documents so the workshops start faster. Several delegates also asked for a more advanced follow-on session — a good problem to have, and one we’re already thinking about.
