Mr Patsy McGlone (Mid Ulster): To ask the Minister of Finance to detail any training that has been provided to staff in his Department on the use of Artificial Intelligence, including its limitations and risks, since February 2024.
Minister of Finance: Department of Finance (DoF) staff have had a range of training, awareness sessions and related learning opportunities on Artificial Intelligence (AI), across business areas, including reference to its limitations and risks.
Basic awareness training from the DoF Digital Workplace team on Co-pilot has been provided internally within the Department.
All staff complete mandatory NICS Meta Compliance courses such as AI Fundamentals & AI Threat, Understanding Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the associated Cyber Security Risks.
Specific Branch Trainings:
Members of the People & Organisational Development senior management team have attended development courses which addressed the limitations and risks associated with Artificial Intelligence.
Digital Shared Services (DSS) staff were provided with five one-hour sessions on how best to incorporate the use of Microsoft Copilot into their jobs. In addition to this specific training, staff within various technical areas of DSS have attended seminars and conferences where the Risks and Implications of AI have been presented.
The Departmental Solicitor’s Office has provided training on the use of AI including
Introduction to AI course
AI Legal Issues Seminars
GLSNI Conference that took place on 19 November 2025.
Individual staff have attended training such as Drafting Use of Customer Data Provisions & AI Training Restrictions and potential AI functionality of legal databases/tools and next steps for legal professional ethics – regulation, responsibilities, culture, and the impact of AI.
NISRA commissioned a bespoke Artificial Intelligence (AI) Accelerator training course for statisticians. This focused on the practical use of AI in a government statistics context. It covered:
ethical and responsible use of AI
core machine learning methods
generative AI and large language models
building and deploying AI applications safely and securely
NISRA also accessed NICS AI enablement sessions for Copilot
Land & Property Services (LPS) held a ‘Connect & Collaborate’ session entitled “Discover how Co-pilot can transform work in LPS”.
ENDS
Your MLA 