The Agentic Civil Service: Breaking Free from Legacy IT, One Workflow at a Time

The Agentic Civil Service: Breaking Free from Legacy IT, One Workflow at a Time

A System at a Standstill

The United Kingdom's public sector is poised at a transformational crossroads. The government has made clear its ambitions to embed artificial intelligence at the heart of service delivery, promising civil servants new tools like the "Humphrey" AI suite and Microsoft 365 Copilot to drive productivity. But for all the promise of AI, the arteries of public service are still clogged with legacy IT. Nearly 30% of central government systems are outdated and "impossible to update". And over 20 of the highest-risk legacy systems remain unfunded for remediation. Until we address these legacy burdens and unlock the siloed data troves, AI will not realise its promise.

Adopting agentic AI, autonomous, task-completing digital agents, offers a way forward. But success demands more than technology. It requires deep alignment of business strategy, workflows, governance, and mindset. This article outlines how the civil service can escape the drag of legacy IT, not by leaping to AI moonshots, but by first laying secure foundation and then rewiring the organisation one workflow at a time.

From Migration Projects to Modernisation Lifecycles

Government modernisation has too often been treated as a one-off project defined by migrations and hardware refreshes. However, modernisation must become a continuous and outcome-driven discipline aligned with business value. This lifecycle must be iterative, grounded in phased discovery, risk mitigation, and real-time telemetry on adoption, cost, carbon footprint, and citizen experience.

The civil service's AI aspirations cannot materialise until this foundation is secure. Without resolving the legacy burden, even the most powerful AI tools will remain superficial features on a broken infrastructure. Hence there is a need for clear government guidance and hard-coded guardrails to steer modernisation safely.

Enter the Agent: AI with Memory, Reasoning, and Autonomy

Agentic AI marks the next evolution of intelligent systems where agents do more than respond to prompts; they act, plan, and learn. Unlike traditional RPA or static AI models, agentic workflows thrive in dynamic environments, adapting to changing contexts and orchestrating end-to-end processes.

Crucially, these agents aren't just technical upgrades. They represent a division of labour between humans and machines. Instead of replacing workers, they enable civil servants to move up the value chain: from operators to "cognitive choreographers"

The Trust Dial: The Role of Governing AI in Public Life

No government can afford to lose public trust. A phased "trust dial" approach is essential as agents move from pilot to production. Start with observation mode, where agents suggest actions but humans retain final control. Gradually introduce dual-control systems and partial autonomy, always mapping each stage to clear metrics: precision, escalation rates, and near-miss incidents

Guidance from the UK's AI Playbook, the DSIT Assurance Framework, and legacy IT risk assessments should shape this journey. Guardrails must be hardcoded into workflows and not just policies on a shelf

Building Agent-Ready Workflows: Four Steps Forward

1. Map Legacy Dependencies with a Lock-In Lens: Use a portability heatmap to identify where contractual, technical, and operational dependencies create drag or risk. Not all lock-in is bad, but organisations must identify unintentional entrapment early.
2. Prioritise High-Impact, Low-Risk Processes: AI shouldn't start in high-stakes policy or citizen-facing decisions. Focus on admin-heavy areas like summarising consultations, generating meeting minutes, or automating internal briefs functions already piloted in Humphrey AI deployments.
3. Design for Human-AI Collaboration: The most successful public sector experiments (e.g., FCDO's digital consular triage) limit hallucinations using pre-approved templates and keep humans in the loop for exceptions.
4. Embed Learning into Every Release: Feedback loops must be built into agent workflows. Like performance audits or financial controls, memory and iteration must become default design features, not afterthoughts.

A Civil Service Transformed, One Task at a Time

Agentic AI isn't a silver bullet. But when paired with structured modernisation and strong human oversight, it becomes a force multiplier. Every minute saved on admin is gained for strategy, empathy, and creativity, the uniquely human traits our institutions need most.

As agents become a fixture of public service, let's measure success not just by the automated outputs but also by improved outcomes: fewer missed appointments, faster planning permissions, and better responses to citizens in crisis.

The Agentic Civil Service won't emerge through a big-bang transformation. It will arrive incrementally, workflow by workflow, with clarity, control, and courage.

From Standstill to Value

The call to action is clear. With an estimated £45 billion in potential productivity gains, jumping over the hurdle of removing the outdated system is key. The time has come to stop treating legacy IT as background noise and to start managing it as a strategic threat. If we pair this discipline with agentic intelligence, the UK civil service can become more efficient, adaptive, resilient, and human.

Unlock measurable business outcomes with a lifecycle approach that turns legacy systems into modern, AI-ready platforms. UBDS Digital blends expert application modernisation, robust managed IT services and round-the-clock protection from our Managed SOC to keep your organisation secure and future-proof. Ready to accelerate your modernisation journey and realise the full power of artificial intelligence? Let's talk.