Across Scotland’s public sector, there is a growing recognition that technology is no longer simply something that supports public services. It is becoming fundamental to how those services are designed, delivered and improved.
Whether you’re working in policing, justice, health, local government or central government, the challenges are remarkably similar. Demand continues to rise. Budgets remain under pressure. Teams are stretched. Cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated. And citizens increasingly expect public services to be as simple, responsive and accessible as the digital services they use every day.
So, how do we respond?
The answer isn’t simply to introduce more technology. It’s about using technology intelligently to create services that work better for the people who rely on them.
From digital transformation to digital by design
Scotland has already made significant progress in its digital journey. The Scottish Government’s Digital Strategy sets out an ambition for public services to be digital by design, secure, data-driven and centred around the needs of citizens rather than organisational structures.
That’s an important distinction.
Digital transformation isn’t about taking an existing process and putting it online. It’s about asking whether the process itself can be redesigned to make it simpler, faster and more effective.
That means connecting data, modernising legacy technology, removing unnecessary administrative work and giving people the tools they need to make better decisions.
And increasingly, it means asking a much bigger question: Where can artificial intelligence help?
AI is moving from experimentation to action
Artificial intelligence has quickly moved from being an emerging technology to something that public sector leaders are actively exploring and, increasingly, putting into practice.
The conversation is changing. It’s no longer just “What can AI do?” It’s “Where can AI make a meaningful difference to our organisation?”
That could mean helping a team summarise information, reducing repetitive administrative tasks, supporting employees with everyday work or helping professionals find and make sense of information more quickly.
At Core, we’ve seen this shift first-hand through more than 100 Copilot engagements, 70 adoption programmes and 30 proof-of-concept deployments across public and private sector organisations.
What started with experimentation around generative AI is increasingly becoming a conversation about measurable business value.
The next step: Agentic AI
Generative AI can help people create, search, summarise and analyse information. The next evolution is AI that can take action.
Agentic AI introduces AI agents that can perform tasks, follow processes, interact with systems and coordinate activities with a degree of autonomy.
Imagine an operational team being able to delegate a series of routine activities to an AI agent rather than manually moving between multiple systems. Or a colleague having an intelligent assistant that can gather relevant information, complete defined steps in a workflow and escalate decisions when human intervention is required.
The potential is significant, but so are the questions.
What can an agent access? What decisions can it make? How do we monitor what it is doing? How do we ensure it follows organisational policies? And how do we know when a person needs to step in?
These aren’t questions that can be answered by technology alone.
AI success is also a governance challenge
For public sector organisations in particular, trust has to be at the heart of AI adoption.
It’s not enough for an AI solution to work. Organisations need confidence that it is secure, compliant, transparent and operating within clearly defined boundaries.
That’s why we believe AI governance needs to be considered from the very beginning, rather than added later.
At Core, we’re helping organisations think about the entire AI lifecycle — from identifying opportunities and building agents through to deployment, monitoring, governance and ongoing management.
Our capabilities across Agent Factory, Agent Lifecycle Management, AI governance and secure Copilot deployment are designed to help organisations move beyond isolated AI pilots and towards a more structured, scalable approach to adoption.
The goal isn’t to introduce AI for the sake of it. It’s to identify where AI can genuinely improve outcomes, then put the right foundations and controls in place to make that improvement sustainable.
Technology has to work for people
There is another important part of this conversation: people.
The most sophisticated technology in the world won’t transform a public service if employees don’t understand it, trust it or know how to use it effectively.
That’s why adoption matters just as much as implementation.
Our experience across more than 70 adoption programmes has shown us that successful transformation involves bringing people with you. It means giving teams the skills, confidence and support to use new technology effectively — while being clear about where human judgement remains essential.
The objective isn’t to replace people. It’s to remove unnecessary friction and give people more time to focus on the work where their experience, judgement and expertise make the biggest difference.
About Core
Core is an award-winning Microsoft Solutions Partner helping organisations across the public and private sectors modernise, secure and optimise their Microsoft investments. From Managed 365 and Azure services to cyber security, data and AI, we deliver practical technology solutions that help organisations work smarter, improve resilience and achieve better business outcomes. Based on over 30 years of Microsoft expertise, our specialists support customers across the UK with trusted advice, proactive managed services and strategic guidance.
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