Guidelines and best practices for making government datasets ready for AI

Executive Summary

The United Kingdom is at a critical inflection point in its adoption of artificial intelligence across sectors. While advances in machine learning, Generative AI capabilities, and Agentic AI capabilities continue at pace, the effectiveness, safety, and legitimacy of AI adoption remain fundamentally constrained by the quality, structure, and governance of underlying data. As articulated in the AI Opportunities Action Plan, the realisation of AI driven public value depends not only on computational capability, but on the availability of accessible, consistent, high-quality, and trustworthy datasets. In His Majesty’s Government (HMG), data collection has often prioritised operational delivery, reporting, or compliance, while considerations around reusability for advanced analytics or AI have sometimes received less attention. As a result, data often remains siloed in respective department systems and with inconsistent documentation. Many datasets lack sufficient metadata, making them difficult to repurpose. The National Audit Office has highlighted that providing raw data or basic APIs without information on data quality or provenance can lead to misunderstanding and misuse, especially in AI capabilities.