The Department for Education’s correspondence team is responsible for responding to a wide range of enquiries from ministers, senior stakeholders, head teachers, parents and pupils. As volumes increased, the department began exploring how artificial intelligence could be used to support drafting responses, improving efficiency while maintaining the quality, assurance, and accountability standards expected in government.
The Correspondence Drafter was one of the department’s first uses of generative AI. An internal proof-of-concept demonstrated that generative AI could significantly reduce the time required to draft responses. The next challenge was to turn that early prototype into a secure, production-ready service that aligned with departmental controls and could be trusted by civil servants in their day-to-day work.
Challenge
Drafting responses to correspondence was a manual and time-intensive process. Team members needed to locate the correct briefing packs, interpret guidance and produce responses from scratch before reviewing and sending them. While this ensured accuracy, it limited the team’s capacity and made it difficult to respond quickly as volumes grew.
The Department for Education wanted to understand whether AI could assist with drafting without undermining governance, data protection or the role of human judgement. Any solution needed to be secure, auditable and easy to evolve over time, while remaining firmly under the control of the correspondence team.
Approach
Made Tech joined a blended, multidisciplinary team working across the department to support this work. Our role was to provide technical architecture expertise, helping shape a solution that could move safely from prototype to private beta within the department’s Microsoft Azure environment.
Working closely with DfE developers, infrastructure specialists, user researchers and Microsoft stakeholders, we helped design a production-ready architecture that met departmental standards and security requirements. This included supporting internal assurance processes, advising on best practice for cloud-native AI services, and ensuring the design could withstand scrutiny from senior stakeholders and security teams.
As one of the department’s early AI initiatives, the solution was designed with a strong emphasis on responsible use. AI supports the drafting of initial responses, but civil servants remain fully accountable for reviewing, editing and approving all correspondence before it is sent.
We also helped ensure the platform could be extended sustainably. New briefing packs can be added through a simple, structured process using Azure-managed services, allowing the correspondence team to expand the tool to cover additional subjects over time without significant redevelopment or ongoing support.
Result
With the Correspondence Drafter in place, the drafting process has been significantly streamlined. Upon receiving correspondence, the drafter selects the relevant AI assistant and enters the enquiry into the tool. A first draft response is generated using approved briefing content, which is then quality-assured by the correspondence team before being sent.
In testing, this approach has significantly reduced the time taken to produce a first draft for supported correspondence types. The tool is currently in private beta on Microsoft Azure and has received positive user feedback.
Impact
By supporting the Department for Education to introduce one of its first production AI services, Made Tech helped demonstrate how AI can be adopted pragmatically within government. The Correspondence Drafter shows how carefully designed AI tools can improve productivity while preserving trust, assurance and accountability, enabling civil servants to focus more of their time on higher-value work.
