AI-assisted FOI drafting — backlog eliminated, deadlines hit.
A UK unitary authority had a growing FOI backlog and was approaching intervention territory on statutory deadlines. A RAG agent now drafts 58% of responses in under two minutes, routes to the right reviewer, and tracks deadline risk.
Statutory pressure met with engineered AI.
FOI volume had outpaced the team. Deadlines were slipping. The council wanted a solution with real audit evidence, human review on every send, and deployment inside its own Azure tenancy.
Approach.
Ground truth
600 historic FOI/EIR responses labelled by outcome and complexity.
Retrieval
Ingested council records, policies, meeting minutes — with access-control-aware search.
Agent
Drafts response, surfaces citations, flags sensitivity, routes to reviewer, tracks deadline.
Governance
DPIA, decision records, audit trail, monthly review cadence with Information Governance.
Rollout
Phased across service areas, with reviewer training and feedback loop.