Corporate report

ACE Annual Review 2024-25 (accessible)

Published 30 July 2025

1. MINISTERIAL FOREWORD

The Rt Hon Lord Hanson of Flint, Minister of State

Innovation is critical to improving performance and value in the public sector, and it is for that reason that the Home Office-owned Accelerated Capability Environment (ACE) champions innovation across the public sector. Mission-led since inception in 2017, ACE helps to tackle complex problems facing government, often finding a data or tech driven solution. This Annual Review provides a snapshot of some of the innovative work that ACE has delivered over the last year.

This year has been a year of change, for ACE itself, the Civil Service as a whole, and beyond. The government came in with a clear plan for change built around key missions and ACE has been working with organisations from across the whole of the public sector to help deliver on those priorities.

Earlier this year, I launched the Home Office’s Research, Development and Innovation Strategy. The new Strategy maps out an ambitious five-year vision to 2030, positioning research, development and innovation at the centre of tackling complex challenges across the Home Office.

Underpinning the strategy is an organisational ambition to foster a culture of innovation and scientific inquisitiveness, while supporting a diverse community. This is where ACE’s unique approach to innovation will be integral in delivering on the ambitions within the strategy.

ACE fosters innovation by working in partnership with the private sector, delivering mission impact through its private sector partner and the ACE community. This diverse community is a big part of what makes ACE special and comprises around 400 organisations, 75% of which are small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs). Alongside this ACE has an Academic Research Network (ARN), made up of 100 institutions and 480 academics. Both provide government with instant access to the best capabilities and expertise while supporting the growth of small businesses.

ACE is delivering on the Prime Minister’s vision for a productive and agile state. Supporting the public sector to exploit the opportunities provided by new and emerging technologies, improving the use of data, and doing things more efficiently, is at the heart of what ACE does. All of this is done at pace, working in a flexible way, to provide impact quickly and typically within 12 weeks.

I am proud that the Home Office can provide such a brilliant offering to the rest of government. ACE can be used by any government body and can tackle almost any problem. Last year, 21 different government bodies commissioned ACE. There is plenty of opportunity for ACE to do more to help the government deliver mission impact and ACE will continue to be ambitious in seeking to deliver for government.

2. INTRODUCTION

Professor Annette Southgate Head of ACE, Home Office and Simon Christoforato CEO of Vivace, ACE’s Private Sector Delivery Partner

The last financial year has been a record-breaking year for ACE. Orders are up by 12% compared to last year and we are doing things even quicker, with the median time from problem definition to delivery down to 36 working days, from 45 last year. This continues to demonstrate the importance of the public sector partnering with the private sector to foster innovation, drive efficiencies and deliver growth and prosperity.

What really matters though, is what sits behind the numbers: the real world impact that ACE’s work is having. The work that we do makes a genuine difference to how government does things and in turn helps to improve people’s lives across the UK.

We are really proud of the diverse community at ACE that enables us to deliver across all of the government missions, and to do that at pace. By bridging the gap between the public and private sectors, our community enables government to work with experts from outside of government, while providing the SMEs in our community with unique opportunities for growth. We continue to see the huge benefits that this brings to all of our work.

This year has been one of change for ACE, with a transition into Home Office leadership. This marks a new chapter for ACE, presenting new opportunities to focus on delivering against the government’s missions.

Looking ahead, a key priority for us is building stronger, more trusted partnerships across government. This includes collaborating with others from across the innovation ecosystem, as well as working even more closely with our customers. We will continue to develop and grow the team of civil servants working as one team with our private sector partner, to help ACE to reach more broadly into the Home Office and further into government.

Over the next year, ACE will continue to grow and evolve. The Home Office is re-procuring a private sector delivery partner for ACE when the current contract ends later this year and ACE remains committed to delivering ongoing mission impact throughout that transition.

Finally, there is always more that we can be doing to support mission delivery across government. We love hearing from people so feel free to get in touch with us - whether it’s to find out more about what we do, explore options for collaboration, or if you have a problem that you need help exploring.

3. WHAT WE OFFER

ACE can tackle almost any problem and in the financial year 2024-25, 21 different government bodies commissioned us. Here are some of the ways that ACE can support you:

De-risking innovation and procurement: ACE delivery experts help to explore, test and refine solutions, making sure it’s the right solution to your problem.

Upskill your teams: through working with ACE and our suppliers, your teams will learn how to ‘innovate’ while retaining full control of the process.

Futures & Insights expertise: stay ahead of emerging trends with intelligence from our dedicated Futures & Insights team.

Enabling services: secure data environments, collaborative office spaces where our teams can work together, and a professional comms service.

Problem definition: if a problem has a clear, ready-built solution, it’s not for ACE. But if the problem requires defining, testing and iteration, we are here to help navigate the unknown.

Rapid identification and development of solutions: the pace at which we work is genuinely surprising, typically delivering an outcome within 12 weeks.

Access to our community and ACE Research Network: unlike traditional procurement processes, we bring together ‘rainbow teams’ where industry and academia, who might never normally work together, collaborate to find a solution to a problem.

4. DELIVERING MISSION IMPACT

Creating a taxonomy for deepfake detection

The explosive growth of AI-generated deepfakes has made the need to detect and mitigate this escalating threat increasingly urgent.

The Deepfake Detection Challenge was established by the Home Office, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, ACE and the Alan Turing Institute to develop innovative and practical solutions focused on detecting fake media. This event took place amid concerns deepfakes could accelerate into the mainstream across areas including online child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA) and fraud.

More than 150 people attended the initial briefing and teams then spent eight weeks developing innovative ideas and solutions on a specially created platform, which hosted approximately two million data assets. The most promising solutions are now going through benchmark and user testing.

To accompany an in-depth report on the progress of deepfake detection capabilities, ACE was asked to develop a taxonomy to address a gap in unifying the concepts, terminology and nuances in deepfakes and associated detection technology. This was designed to aid cross-government and international sharing of knowledge and information.

We started by reviewing more than 30 papers, as well as dozens of articles and conversations with multiple subject matter experts.

Our research also built on several years of relevant ACE work by the Futures & Insights team, including:

• An investigation of how to assess deepfake detection accuracy
• A review of the deepfake detection technology landscape
• Assessments of how AI is and will be used for fraud, money laundering and mis/disinformation
• Primary research with social media companies about how they approach deepfake CSEA.

ACE took the view that an effective taxonomy needed to be flexible enough to adapt to unknown future developments. Therefore, it should focus on categories and types rather than specific tools, platforms or examples that will become quickly obsolete.

The taxonomy considered types of deepfakes, their attributes and their uses. It explores the broader deepfake ecosystem, the deepfake lifecycle, potential points of intervention, and a high-level view on potential detection approaches. It also distinguishes deepfakes from other kinds of synthetic media such as ‘fake news’.

A complementary glossary defines a set of common terms to inform broader understanding and conversations on this topic.

ACE continues working with government to ensure the UK remains at the forefront of deepfake detection.

5. ACE: BRINGING INNOVATION TO LIFE THROUGH COLLABORATION

At ACE, innovation isn’t just about great new ideas. It’s about the process of bringing together the right people and the right platforms to bring those ideas to life and ultimately add value to the way we live, work and solve problems. As an integrator, ACE builds bespoke, diverse teams, drawing expertise from government, industry, academia, and frontline services to solve today’s most complex digital challenges.

What makes ACE stand out lies in the way we work, combining technical excellence, agile delivery, and a vibrant community mindset. ACE connects different perspectives and rapidly applies learnings across commissions; and in doing so we drive impactful outcomes for our customers and the public.

A standout example that has shown ACE’s ways of working in action over the last year is our work supporting the expansion of the NHS App.

5.1 Transforming patient access and improving care with the NHS App

Faster care, better experiences: shaping digital transformation for millions…

ACE supported the development and scaling of the NHS App’s capabilities, ensuring that millions of citizens are better able to manage their healthcare on their own.

Working closely with NHS partners, we helped shape new digital pathways that have had remarkable impact. Since launching expanded features in 2024:

• 87% of hospitals in England offer services through the NHS App.
• It has helped avoid 1.5 million missed hospital appointments.
• It has saved over 5.7 million staff hours.
• It has helped to deliver £622 million in savings to the NHS.

ACE’s agile delivery methods, commitment to collaboration, and ability to quickly integrate expertise from across sectors made a real difference.

By keeping patients at the heart of the design and focusing on practical transformation, we’ve been part of a team that has helped reduce waiting times, free up clinical capacity, and improve patient experience at scale.

6. CASE STUDIES

We believe that innovation is not just about technology. It’s also about people and collaboration too. Our work is defined not only by the solutions we help deliver but also by how we deliver them, through deep collaboration, diverse perspectives and a shared commitment to making a difference.

Every challenge we take on is shaped by the collective strength of our community. We bring together experts from across industry, academia and government to tackle some of the most complex problems facing the public sector. By assembling multi-disciplinary teams at pace, we enable innovation that is developed with integrity, diversity, curiosity and compassion at its core.

The case studies that follow showcase the wide range of work from the past year, from applying cutting edge AI to real world problems to finding smarter ways to use data, and much more. What unites every single one is the ACE approach: rapid experimentation, agile delivery and relentless curiosity.

We’re proud of the outcomes our commissions achieve, but we’re also proud of how they come to life - through open collaboration, trusted partnerships and a culture that values bold thinking.

Innovation doesn’t happen in isolation. And it can be on small or large scale; after all, small changes can have a big impact. But innovation happens when the right people come together in the right environment. At ACE, we’re creating that environment every day - and the results speak for themselves.

7. DATA CASE STUDIES

Data is a vital asset in our modern world - but only if it can be accessed, understood and acted upon. At ACE, we work with our ACE community of experts to turn data into insight at pace. We help teams unlock the potential in their data and provide insights into existing datasets, as well as joining up disparate data to help government exploit the opportunities available by the significant increase in volumes of data.

Whether looking at data flows at airports or mitigating security threats to the UK, our work supports a culture of evidence driven action. The case studies that follow show how secure, ethical and effective data sharing can generate impact across government and public safety organisations.

7.1 Case study: exploring transformational auto redaction technology for policing

The volume of digital evidence in investigations is increasing dramatically, and with it demand for technology that can automate the time-consuming process of redacting sensitive details such as personally identifiable information.

Estimates suggest that better utilisation of automated redaction technology in policing would quickly reduce the amount of time frontline officers are spending on manual redaction, where the current average is nine hours to redact 60 minutes of visual media.

The Home Office asked ACE to carry out a landscape review to establish the current state of play across police forces and the challenges they face.

Following this, work continued across two workstreams. Through Policing Engagement, 16 police forces were involved through a combination of interviews, demonstrations of current processes and capturing of user journeys to understand more detail on the challenges being faced, what tooling is currently being used and the limitations these have.

The second workstream focused on a market evaluation of current technological capabilities.

The key finding was efficiency and productivity savings of 60% that could be realised through better utilisation of redaction tooling.

7.2 Case study: seeing the bigger picture - rethinking maritime correlation capability

The UK’s coastal waters rely on multiple sensors, such as radar and Automatic Identification Systems (AIS), but overlapping data often leads to cluttered displays and confusion for operators at the Joint Maritime Security Centre (JMSC). Seeking clarity, JMSC partnered with ACE to explore how best to combine these sensor inputs into a single, coherent vessel track.

Rather than managing a single supplier, ACE proposed rapid trials with multiple providers in its secure PodDev test environment, using real historic data to compare solutions.

The project revealed that a modular, integrated approach — rather than a ‘one size fits all’ solution — was needed for JMSC’s evolving maritime domain awareness system. Key findings included the importance of data quality, preprocessing, and operational fit. The work resulted in a fully informed Statement of Requirement (SoR) and valuable insights for future procurement.

JMSC praised ACE for reshaping their strategy, demonstrating how early, hands-on trials can de-risk public sector innovation and procurement.

7.3 PodDev

A secure-by-design data platform which is accredited up to Official Sensitive level by the Home Office, PodDev provides an dedicated environment for suppliers and customers to collaborate remotely and innovate at pace without friction to experiment and test ideas.

7.4 Case study: strengthening the UK’s borders by smashing people smuggling gangs

The UK’s new Border Security Command (BSC) commissioned ACE to produce a series of evidence-based reports to provide additional insights into criminal networks.

ACE conducted deep research into how organised crime groups (OCGs) are using social media to carry out organised immigration crime (OIC), and how this can be monitored and potentially disrupted using open source intelligence (OSINT) tools.

This included detailed evidence gathered from dozens of subject matter experts across government, industry, academia and civil society on how OCGs are using social media and how OSINT can be employed to identify and disrupt this.

Case studies, including examples of online interactions as well as behavioural insights and analysis, were also created.

By providing a synthesis of expert opinion on the scale and scope of this problem and the OSINT capabilities available, ACE helped BSC better understand the extent to which social media and online platforms are used in the smuggling process.

7.5 Case study: helping policing understand the criminal implications of AI

The Public Safety Group, part of the Home Office, commissioned ACE to increase understanding across government of AI products that are being released onto the market and how these could be used by criminals.

Generative AI is already accelerating crime types including fraud, child sexual abuse material and disinformation. In future, these threats could grow, and new ones emerge.

ACE created a baseline understanding of publicly available products and markets in four areas. These were:

• Image and video generators, including so-called ‘nudification’ apps
• Chatbots that can be misused for criminal or malicious purposes
• Voice cloners, with a focus on how they are being used in areas such as fraud
• Data and predictive analytics tools.

This portfolio provided a comprehensive and up-to-date understanding of AI products relevant to criminal activities.

A second request was to produce a monthly newsletter exploring new AI products being released, creating content and analysis specific to policing, crime and AI.

7.6 Case study: helping the Department for Transport increase data resilience at UK cargo hubs

The Department for Transport needed to understand data flows within cargo shipments so that it could identify potential supply chain risks and how to mitigate them.

ACE was asked to develop a reusable methodology that could map the types of data that flow through cargo systems and identify potential vulnerabilities.

The first step was identifying exactly what data is captured around cargo planes flying in and out of the pilot airport site, including where data came in and left airport systems, where cargo is going next, the suppliers and systems involved at every stage, and defining the processes data goes through.

Ultimately, a standardised methodology approach was created, covering three key steps of understanding data flows, reviewing threats and vulnerabilities, and identifying risks and implementing cost-effective security controls. Guidance that could be used by other teams to easily create their own processes was created.

8. AI CASE STUDIES

AI is reshaping the way we tackle complex challenges and at ACE we are focused on ensuring it does so responsibly. Our cross-sector community helps government partners explore, test and apply AI capabilities with both speed and care. From our work with the Ministry of Justice to policing, we bring together technical expertise, ethical frameworks and operational know-how to move AI from theory into practice. The following case studies highlight our work in this area, showing how we are supporting the adoption of AI, enabling our customers to be more adaptive, insightful and resilient in the modern technological world

8.1 Case study: helping the MoJ support families to stay out of court

While most families can resolve their issues without going to court many still end up in conflict. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is determined to change the justice system to support families to resolve their issues earlier and outside of court, where appropriate.

For the last two years the MoJ has worked with ACE to design and develop a new online tool for parents/carers to bring together authoritative information to support them when a dispute arises.

User research and stakeholder engagement workshops enabled ACE to develop two new digital services to provide early improvements for families.

• A retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) AI chatbot, that allows users to ask questions in their own words and provides them with the correct advice and guidance at the right point in their journey
• A self-help tool for making child arrangements plans to enable conflict resolution.

ACE also developed a proof of concept demonstrating how an AI-driven solution can address pain points and users’ needs within private family law, completed a full review of the relevant GOV.UK pages and designed and developed a secure, sophisticated AI solution aimed at streamlining court backlog data analysis, and enhancing decision making.

8.2 Case study: exploring how an AI lab model could work for policing

Artificial intelligence will play a significant role in shaping the police service of the future, bolstering capabilities by making investigations more sophisticated and efficient as well as freeing up officers’ time.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) wants to establish UK policing as a leader in AI but use of the technology to date is largely limited to niche capabilities or individual forces.

ACE was asked to explore a high-level operating model for how an in-house AI lab could inspire and enable greater innovation.

ACE undertook a discovery exercise, exploring how a dedicated lab could provide police forces and their partners with the environment, support and expertise needed to develop, de-risk and rapidly adopt trustworthy AI technologies.

From three design and operating model options developed and presented in a final report, the one that would produce a world-leading and futureproof AI lab within 18 months was recommended.

8.3 Case study: increasing automated detection capabilities for freight crossing the UK border

As cross-border traffic continues to grow, Border Force wants to expand the use of AI to enhance the searching and screening of freight at UK seaports.

To balance security with the smooth movement of legitimate goods, the agency wants to automate detection of anomalies in x-ray images, as manual analysis is both time consuming and prone to error.

Border Force turned to ACE for support in organising and analysing its extensive x-ray image database, which had previously been stored inconsistently across multiple data structures.

ACE was initially tasked with creating a fully indexed and standardised repository of x-ray images and associated data — making it easily accessible to analysts and suitable for AI algorithm development.

Six ACE suppliers collaborated to explore innovative AI and machine-learning methodologies and developed three use cases: vector integrity, pattern recognition, and high-density material detection.

The insights gained were presented to Border Force at a demonstration day, and trials of the AI anomaly detection system have also been conducted across multiple ports.

9. IMPROVED OPERATIONS CASE STUDIES

Operational excellence isn’t just about technology. It’s about people, process and pace. At ACE, we help organisations improve how they work by combining innovative thinking with grounded delivery. Whether we’re streamlining complex workflows or building out operating models, we help teams become more efficient, agile and effective. The following case studies demonstrate our work in this area showing how small shifts can have big impact.

9.1 Case study: increasing innovation in the Home Office

With the tagline “one big thing starts with one small change” the 2024 cross-government One Big Thing annual initiative was designed to pinpoint how innovation can be used to improve processes and service delivery in a more modern civil service.

To build on this momentum, ACE used its significant expertise and experience in leveraging innovation for impact to explore how people at the Home Office could become more familiar with useful tools and techniques and feel empowered to use them. This aim is to improve service delivery, which is good for the public, as well as increase efficiency, delivering better value for money.

Given this, ACE designed three workstreams. The first was an innovation readiness assessment, collecting qualitative and quantitative data to assess the current state of innovation in the Home Office.

The second was an innovation toolkit, with a focus on creating tools and techniques that any staff member can adopt to drive innovation.

Then, the third, aligned with the innovation toolkit, was a route planner to guide team members through different stages of innovation. An interactive PowerPoint with active macros, it offers multiple routes for next steps that can be used for everything from small trials to scaling up something that has already been through initial testing.

9.2 Case study: developing a model to prioritise policing technology investments

The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) needed to develop a clear understanding of UK policing’s national digital, data and technology (DDaT) landscape so that it could make better informed investment decisions.

A defined mechanism would help the NPCC stay abreast of when capabilities need updating or will become obsolete, enabling requirements for infrastructure and technology to be assessed and prioritised.

These could then be fed into the Home Office process that allocates national funds, prioritising investment where it is most needed.

ACE worked with the NPCC’s Digital, Data and Technology Coordination Committee (DDaTCC) to inform, shape and test a National Prioritisation Model solution design.

This is designed to run alongside existing annual planning and financial lifecycles but can also accommodate ad hoc requirements.

Two supporting tools - a requirements assessment criteria form and a dashboard that provides an insights summary and scores against core areas - were also developed.

9.3 Case study: a strategic operating model for the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners

Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) are key decision makers on digital, data and technology (DDaT) investment and need to be well briefed to make informed judgements.

The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) supports PCCs to engage with national governance structures but has limited resources.

The APCC approached ACE to understand how it and PCCs can best engage with other policing partners to review and scrutinise emerging requirements as well as agree and oversee investments.

ACE, working with a rainbow team of suppliers, started by mapping current arrangements for APCC and PCC engagement in the national DDaT landscape, to understand pain points as well as requirements. This then informed the underlying principles of a future strategic engagement model.

This model includes three additional roles to support national governance interaction. A range of supporting proof of concept tools were also developed.

Next steps include refining the proposed model in consultation with PCCs.

10. COMMUNITY STORIES

Our ACE community is at the heart of everything we do. By giving innovative organisations (many of whom are SMEs) real world problems to solve, ACE not only delivers impact for government, we also help businesses grow, scale and thrive, supporting the UK’s wider mission of economic growth and prosperity

10.1 Navigating change: intandem’s ACE supplier story

Founded in 2018 by Chloe Wolff and Daniel Mueller, innovation, strategy and new ventures consultancy intandem specialises in helping clients to harness innovation and emerging technology to deliver meaningful change.

It focuses on a wide variety of sectors including defence, space, government, healthcare, mobility and net zero; as Wolff points out, “all of which are heavily regulated industries that are having to navigate huge disruptions from tech – this is very much our sweet spot”.

intandem has been part of the ACE community since 2022 and has worked on 12 commissions for ACE, for clients including the Metropolitan Police and the Home Office. Recent examples include exploring future use cases and opportunities to utilise synthetic data in law enforcement and delivering tooling to facilitate innovation.

“One of the things we love about ACE is working on big, impactful challenges that our clients are seeking to address. We enjoy and value collaboration – we’re called ‘intandem’ for a reason,” explains Wolff.

10.2 Delivering beyond expectations: Adappt’s ACE supplier story

Adappt was founded in 2011 offering ‘business class’ software development services to provide intelligent cutting edge support to companies struggling to get projects over the finish line.

Now with a team of 150 globally, and a rapidly expanding footprint in the UK, Adappt has made a name for itself as a centre of excellence for AI and problem solving solutions.

This work sees Adappt as a long term partner with the World Health Organization providing next generation reporting dashboards/tools with the aim of predicting and stopping the next pandemic.

Adappt joined ACE’s Vivace supplier community in 2019 and quickly got involved in one of the first Impact Lab projects. These use real police data to help solve pressing frontline problems.

Adappt developed a customer tool within six weeks that rapidly ingested and tokenised vast quantities of data, meaning messages could be triaged in minutes rather than months.

Another notable commission involved tracing the sales of government restricted products in the UK, to establish if these were compliant.

10.3 Cutting edge sustainable tech: the Servita supplier story

When Servita set up in the UK in 2016, it had a team of around 30. Now it’s 180 and counting.

Servita specialises in helping organisations transform through technology so they can overcome entrenched ways of working and operations.

Servita’s key capabilities include user centred design and expertise in advanced, highly secure, high performance and sustainable cloud hosted solutions. Artificial intelligence, machine learning and natural language processing are also strong competencies.

Servita has been active in the ACE community since 2020. One early major project was working as part of the ACE core team on the UK government’s Covid response.

For a health commission, Servita delivered a digital tool capable of measuring and reporting digital deficit, so an organisation could understand where it stands digitally in relation to industry standards.

Servita also remains an integral part of ACE’s wider NHS work, where it built and currently maintains a national data information exchange that links all of the secondary care landscape in England to the NHS App.

10.4 Working lean and fast: the Coefficient ACE supplier story

Coefficient is an AI and data consultancy that aims to elevate the global standard of data science, machine learning, and AI, one project at a time.

This culture is maintained by a “small but mighty” team of data scientists, software engineers, statisticians, and machine learning specialists, who are passionate about open source technologies and agile delivery. However, Coefficient never just applies technology for the sake of it – they start by asking questions to get to the root of the problem.

Coefficient joined ACE in early 2021 and has since worked on 12 projects. Two illustrate Coefficient’s achievements within ACE. For one law enforcement commission, the team completed a discovery phase and developed a machine-learning model that mimicked the results obtained by existing manual methods in just 12 weeks. The tool was then tested in real world conditions as well as presented to government ministers.

For a different law enforcement project, Coefficient evaluated a number of commercial redaction tools that use AI to replace faces, text, and audio in sensitive media.

11. APPLYING AI IN GOVERNMENT: A PRACTICAL MODEL FROM ACE

AI holds huge promise for government, from streamlining services to supporting smarter, faster decisions. But turning that promise into public value demands more than smart technology. It requires strong foundations, a clear sense of purpose, and delivery built on trust.

ACE has worked across government to help departments move from AI ambition to real world application. From that experience, we’ve developed a practical model for success: Enable, Deliver, Sustain.

Enable: creating the right conditions

Before any AI tool is built, we help teams identify meaningful use cases, assess ethical and data considerations, and engage stakeholders across policy, delivery and operations. This stage is about asking the right questions, including whether AI is the right solution at all.

ACE IN ACTION: in the EVITA project, we helped government partners explore deepfake detection by creating a gold-standard dataset and ethical testing framework to guide safe development.

Deliver: building solutions that work

Once the groundwork is in place, we move fast to design, prototype and test, using agile methods and cross-sector teams from our ACE community. We keep delivery grounded in real needs, while ensuring models are explainable, secure and operationally ready.

ACE IN ACTION: for example, our work supporting the NHS App contributed to AI-powered features that have prevented 1.5 million missed appointments and saved over 5.7 million staff hours.

Sustain: embedding value over time

AI isn’t a one-off fix. It needs to be monitored, adapted and governed over time. We help ensure solutions remain ethical, effective and aligned with evolving public needs. That includes knowledge sharing, upskilling, and supporting scalable, repeatable delivery across departments.

ACE IN ACTION: our deepfake work now includes a cross-government taxonomy and testing framework, giving teams a shared language and standards to build from.

AI in government must be purposeful, safe and built to last.

The Enable, Deliver, Sustain model helps departments navigate complexity and move at pace — from policy ambition to trusted, scalable outcomes.