Asylum Case Summarisation (ACS)

Streamlining asylum decisions with AI-powered transcript summarisation

  • Publicly sourced

The challenge

The Home Office faced significant time burden on asylum decision-makers who must read and analyse lengthy interview transcripts, often extending to 50+ pages per case, creating high cognitive load and time constraints that slow processing of asylum cases.

The solution

The Asylum Case Summarisation system uses OpenAI's GPT-4 to automatically convert lengthy asylum interview transcripts into concise summary documents. Built internally by the Home Office, the system operates as a human-in-the-loop tool that assists decision-makers with faster case familiarisation while maintaining human control over all asylum decisions.

The results

Two 8-week pilot phases (May-June and September-October 2024) across two Decision Making Units evaluated the system with test and comparison groups. Phase 1 involved 60 decision-makers using AI summaries and 15 using traditional methods; Phase 2 involved 45 using AI and 15 using traditional methods. The test group processed 334 cases with AI summarisation whilst the comparison group processed 95 cases using traditional methods, demonstrating efficiency gains alongside accuracy challenges:

  • 23 minutes saved per case on average (32% time reduction)
  • 65% of respondents reported they would continue using the tool
  • 77% felt summaries helped quickly understand cases
  • 42% felt summaries provided the right amount of information
  • 9% of summaries deemed inaccurate and removed before pilot use
  • 23% of users reported not being fully confident in summaries
  • Technical specialist review required for all AI-generated content Full rollout planned for January 2026.

Details

Organisation name
Home Office (HO)
Government body
UK Government
User group
Civil servants
Use case type
Reusable
Type of technology
Generative AI
Phase
Alpha
Impact
Improved efficiency / Time savings

Links

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Content created: 12 September 2025