A public body has to justify the decision and the procurement that bought it
Two records have to survive scrutiny, not one. The system must be able to reconstruct why a determination was made about a person, and the department must be able to show that the tool was acquired, evaluated and monitored under a defensible process. An architecture that satisfies only the first fails at the second, usually years later and in public.
Three engagements we are asked for
Case triage and eligibility support
Routing and prioritisation where the determination stays human and the recommendation is recorded with its basis.
Needs: a published decision policy · a citation to the rule applied · an appeal path that reaches a person
Document handling at departmental scale
Correspondence, submissions and filings against a legislated rule set, where retrieval quality is the whole outcome.
Needs: an authoritative corpus · versioned legislation · retention rules honoured
Programme integrity and anomaly review
Disbursement and eligibility anomalies surfaced for human review, with an evidence pack an audit committee can read.
Needs: labelled history · a false-positive budget agreed in advance · a published error rate
What we will tell you not to do
Published because it is the fastest way to find out whether we are the right firm for this — and because it is what we say in the room.
Do not automate a determination that affects an individual’s entitlement
It can be recommended, ranked and evidenced. The determination stays with an accountable officer, and the system records who that was.
Do not train on citizen data without a lawful basis stated in the architecture
The basis belongs in the design document, not in a later assessment written to justify a system that already exists.
Do not procure a model where a rules engine is the honest answer
Where the rule is written down and deterministic, implement the rule. It is cheaper, explainable by construction, and defensible on appeal.
Evidence
- Registry pilot delivered under a non-disclosure agreementno consent on file
No client is named without fresh written permission. Entries above are the record as it stands, including the ones we cannot yet name.
Entity details, insurance and governance documentation are published in advance for procurement — see how to buy us.
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Tell us which of the three above is closest, and what has to be true for it to work in your control environment.