What specific purposes are Oranga Tamariki's 100 Microsoft Copilot licences being used for, and is Copilot used in any way to inform, support, or prioritise care and protection decisions, risk assessments of children, or decisions to remove children from their families?

Answer

I am advised by Oranga Tamariki that the Microsoft Copilot licences are being used as part of a limited-user pilot to test the use of a basic desktop-based Artificial Intelligence tool by different business groups. This includes basic integration with Microsoft Office tools to support day-to-day activities such as meeting minutes, documentation generation assistance and summarisation. I am further advised that the objective of this limited-user pilot is to test the use of Copilot in various groups to improve staff productivity specific to each group. The number of licences has now been increased to around 200 to increase the coverage of the pilot users across the Ministry’s business units. Copilot is not used to inform, support, or prioritise care and protection decisions for frontline social workers.