Minding the machine

AI and governance for boards, councillors and trustees.

A half day on governing AI well: duties and accountability, oversight and assurance, members' own use, fairness and the cases where governance failed.

Level: Explore
Learning time: 6 hours
Where: AI and Governance
Price: £129

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About this course

Overview and Outcomes.

Who It's For

Boards, councillors, trustees and governance professionals in public services and charities

Overview

This half-day programme covers the whole of governing AI in four stages. It opens with foundations and duties: why AI belongs on every board agenda, the Nolan Principles and what the Companies Act 2006 and Charity Commission guidance ask of those who govern. Oversight and assurance follow, through the Institute of Directors' twelve principles, risk appetite, the Three Lines Model, ISO/IEC 42001 and the Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard. The board then looks at itself: members' use of AI for papers and minutes, competing meanings of fairness, the Equality Act 2010 and red lines. It closes with Robodebt, the Post Office Horizon scandal and the Arup deepfake fraud, and a capstone set in an invented Welsh council and young carers' charity.

Aims

This programme aims to develop board members, councillors and trustees who hold named people to account for every use of AI, ask for evidence rather than reassurance, keep their own judgement human and lead their board's first ninety days on AI with confidence.

In summary, you will be able to:

Explain how the duties of directors, trustees, councillors and housing boards apply when AI shapes decisions, and why accountability stays with named people.
Assess the oversight, assurance and transparency your organisation has in place for AI, using recognised frameworks and the lessons of past governance failures.
Plan your board's first ninety days on AI, including a members' protocol for its own use and the values and red lines it will hold.

What you'll develop

Across this Explore, you will develop the ability to:

Use the six-part accountability map to record ownership, override, assurance and reporting for an AI tool in your organisation.
Judge where AI oversight should sit, which posture your board holds and what a quarterly AI report to the board should contain.
Plan proportionate assurance for your organisation's AI, rating impact and opacity and following the six steps from Map to Follow up.
Apply the six lines of enquiry, routes to worker voice and the transparency test to an AI proposal in your organisation.
Plan how your board will turn its values into tests and red lines, and judge what an ethics panel can and cannot add.
Plan your board's first ninety days on AI, and score its current position using the five-layer synthesis and six-area self-assessment.

What is inside

Built from 4 parts.

6 hours of learning.

01Who answers for the algorithm?AI governance duties, accountability and oversightBitesize3 modules
02Assured and openAI assurance, transparency and public scrutinyBitesize2 modules
03AI at the board tableAI in board papers and minutes, ethics and red linesBitesize2 modules
04When governance failsAI governance failures and case studiesBitesize2 modules

Where it fits

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Part of the AI and Governance topic.

How credit works

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