Opinion: A warm welcome for new citizens

​It’s a long and rigorous process and I am told it is a rather expensive one too for the applicants.

I’m always impressed by the range of countries from which the new citizens originate. It can be as many as 20 at one ceremony. And I think it all helps to add to the diversity of our great city of Peterborough.

After the ceremony, I usually have a cup of tea and some cake with the new citizens.

I’m always interested to hear about their line of work, their background and their life stories.

At a recent ceremony, I was chatting to a young man called Abraham, who told me that he works for a company which trains young people for careers in project management and IT. He invited me to come and speak at a “Great Achievers” conference that he was organising at the Millennium Centre.

So the mayoress and I went along to the conference and we heard a series of talks about the potential role of artificial intelligence (AI) in the world of IT and project management.

We were told particularly about ChatGPT, which is an AI tool that you can download onto your phone. One of the speakers told us how he had worked with the Planning Inspectorate to use ChatGPT to plan a project to completely transform its website to make it easier to use.

He had lots of ideas about how AI could be used in a local authority context. For example, the ChatGPT bot could analyse responses to a planning consultation, pick out the most relevant comments from the public and put them into a report. It could even compose follow up letters to be sent to every respondent.

So after the conference I did two things.

As mayor, I am setting up a meeting between one of the speakers from the conference and relevant senior officers in the council’s IT department to explore how AI and Chat GPT could be used to help the council transform its services and processes. The idea being to make services and processes better for the public but at a lower cost to the council.

I think there is great potential and I am told the council wants to develop an AI strategy, so it can be used most effectively but with appropriate safeguards in place.

Secondly, I have downloaded the ChatGPT app onto my phone. It’s free initially but to get the full functionality involves a small monthly fee.

I have used it mainly for when, as mayor, I have to make short speeches at events. I can put in some bullet points supplied by council officers or the event organisers and within seconds the chat bot writes me a speech for the event.

I’ve tried it a few times now and I find it saves me lots of time and effort. All I have to do is check the draft speech and tweak it a bit to suit my own style. If it’s too long, I can just ask the chat bot to shorten it for me. I’m only a beginner but I am sure I will find lots of other uses for the app in time.

Finally, the usual plug for mayoral charities’ fundraising events.

The next one is a curry night at Gurkha Durbaar on Tuesday February 27 at 7pm. Tickets are £25 from [email protected].

And then there is a ‘Chocolate Bingo’ at the town hall on Thursday 14 March, where tickets are only £7. Everyone is welcome at all our mayoral events. So, see you there.