Swindon Borough Council: Simply Readable, an AI easy-read solution

Swindon Borough Council boasts a forward-thinking approach to technology. Their dedicated Emerging Technology team has leveraged AI for several years, delivering cutting-edge solutions that address service-area challenges. The council first considered AI over five years ago and have continued to trial and innovate with AI, recently deploying a solution to cut their translation services by 99.6 per cent. 

Identifying another crucial area, the council focused on creating accessible information for residents with learning disabilities. The Accessible Information Standard (AIS), introduced in 2016, mandates a consistent approach for all relevant organisations. Additionally, the Equalities Act 2010 emphasises easy-read documentation as a reasonable adjustment for people with learning disabilities. 

However, existing methods for generating easy-read documents were expensive and slow. Each A4 page cost around £120 and documents took weeks to complete, or social workers had to dedicate significant time to create them manually. This hindered the council's goal of empowering people with learning disabilities by providing them with equal access to information and opportunities. 

There are over 1 million people with learning disabilities in the UK alone. Easy-read documents, with their clear visuals, larger fonts, and concise language, ensure they can make informed decisions about their lives.

Swindon Borough Council faced a challenge: creating accessible "Easy-Read" documents for residents with learning disabilities was time-consuming and expensive. Traditional methods for creating "Easy-Read" documents were not only time-consuming, but also financially unsustainable. Their groundbreaking solution, "Simply Readable," leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to generate these documents in a matter of minutes, at a cost of c.1p per page. This dramatic reduction in time and expense frees up valuable time for social workers, allowing them to focus on providing direct support to residents. More importantly, it ensures residents with learning disabilities have timely access to crucial information, empowering them to make informed decisions about their lives. 

"Simply Readable" embodies Swindon's dedication to fostering social inclusion. Recognising the importance of resident experience, the council partnered with a group of residents with learning disabilities throughout the development process. This co-creation approach ensured the tool addressed genuine needs. The residents' expertise directly shaped key features like the use of clear, concise language, larger fonts for improved readability, increased spacing to avoid overwhelming the reader, and the inclusion of relevant images to enhance understanding. This ongoing collaboration with the resident group serves as a feedback loop, guaranteeing "Simply Readable" remains effective and meets the evolving needs of its users. 

The user-friendly Amazon Bedrock platform provided the foundation for "Simply Readable." This platform's intuitive interface allowed the council access of choice to pre-built foundation models, to develop and customise their preferred AI model without requiring extensive coding expertise. Social workers can now simply input complex information and receive easy-to-understand versions in under 30 minutes, significantly streamlining communication. The impact of "Simply Readable" extends beyond residents with learning disabilities. By integrating with existing translation services, the tool can translate documents into a staggering 75 languages. This expanded functionality benefits non-native English speakers and individuals with lower literacy levels, promoting greater inclusivity within the community.