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Title
Swindon Borough Council makes public information accessible with an Easy Read generative AI tool built on Amazon Bedrock
…a significant change to a local provision or the need to attend an appointment. Our Easy Read solution presents simplified text on the right side of a page and images on the left—all summarizing the most important, relevant information. This results in docum…
Description
Swindon Borough Council, a local authority in England, built an Easy Read solution using Amazon Bedrock to make council documents accessible to residents with learning disabilities, low literacy or cognitive impairment. The generative AI summarizes and simplifies complex text and generates matching images, presenting simplified text alongside images on the page. The council tested the tool on a complex tenancy agreement over 50 pages long and, working with a group of Experts by Experience of a Learning Disability, refined the format based on their feedback. Combined with the council's existing Translate solution, content can be produced in 75 languages. Manually adapting a five-page document into Easy Read format previously cost around £500 and took two weeks; the council can now create an accessible multi-page document for 7-10 pence per page. The council plans to make the tool open source for other councils to use.
…r local councils to experiment with. We are also confident that data is secure. We tested the technology on a complex tenancy agreement more than 50 pages long. We experimented with the tools and within just a few days sent samples of adapt…
…. Also, as a council with budget pressures, there’s significant financial gain. We can now create an accessible multi-page document for 7-10 pence per page (9-13₡). Share the benefits Cloud-based technology has enabled this service innovation.…
Company
Swindon Borough Council
…ools to make content more understandable. This is something we’re focused on at Swindon Borough Council , a local authority in England. We have an opportunity to connect in new ways with residents who have addition…
Country
United Kingdom
…ools to make content more understandable. This is something we’re focused on at Swindon Borough Council , a local authority in England. We have an opportunity to connect in new ways with residents who have addition…
Region
Europe
…ools to make content more understandable. This is something we’re focused on at Swindon Borough Council , a local authority in England. We have an opportunity to connect in new ways with residents who have addition…
Problem
Not all citizens have the same ability to identify and digest information that's important to them, so councils have to invest in alternative Easy Read versions of documents. It can typically cost £120 to adapt content manually for a single page with five lines and five images, and an average five-page document would take two weeks to adapt and cost £500 — unsustainable in terms of demand on council resources.
…to invest in alternative versions of documents in a format known as Easy Read . It can typically cost £120 ($150) to adapt content manually for a single page with just five lines and five images. An average document of five pages would take two weeks to adapt, and cost £500…
…age document of five pages would take two weeks to adapt, and cost £500 ($750). This is unsustainable in terms of the demand on council resources. Most importantly, people could miss a significant change to a local provision o…
Business value
It can typically cost £120 to adapt content manually for a single page with five lines and five images, and an average five-page document would take two weeks to adapt and cost £500 — unsustainable given council resource pressures. The council can now create an accessible multi-page document for 7-10 pence per page. The council plans to make the tool open source, along with its prompts and parameters, for other councils and public/third-sector organizations to use.
…. Also, as a council with budget pressures, there’s significant financial gain. We can now create an accessible multi-page document for 7-10 pence per page (9-13₡). Share the benefits Cloud-based technology has enabled this service innovation.…
…to their own citizens. That’s something I’m passionate about. For this reason, we plan to make our tool open source—in other words, available for others to use, licence-free. We’ll also release the prompts and parameters we’ve curated, so that others in…
AI capabilities
Generative AI, Document Intelligence
…thers to discover what’s happening in their community. The AI-based facilitator Generative AI excels in making content more accessible for everyone, thanks to its ability to summarize and simplify information, and turn it into forms such as images. Amazon Bedrock is a fully managed service that provides one of the simplest way…
Solution
Swindon Borough Council built an Easy Read solution using Amazon Bedrock, a fully managed service that lets teams build and scale generative AI applications, to summarize and simplify complex text and generate matching images, presenting simplified text on the right side of a page and images on the left. The council tested the tool on a complex tenancy agreement more than 50 pages long, sending early samples to Adult Social Care before moving into a deeper engineering phase. Working with a group called Experts by Experience of a Learning Disability, the council refined the format based on their feedback — learning that images are important, text size needs to be bigger than usual, the space between text needs to be wider, and jargon and ambiguous terms must be avoided. The council combined the tool with its existing Translate solution to make content available in 75 languages.
…At Swindon, we’re keen to improve services informed by the people who use them. We employed Experts by Experience of a Learning Disability, a group whose members have a wide range of learning disabilities. Tom, Dan, Charlotte, Kelly, Tammy, Elroy, and David provided important insights…
…we moved into a deeper engineering phase. A positive difference for communities We also saw an opportunity to combine the technology with our existing Translate solution , making content available in 75 languages and reaching people for whom English is a second language. At Swindon, we’re ke…
Industry
Government & Public Sector
…ools to make content more understandable. This is something we’re focused on at Swindon Borough Council , a local authority in England. We have an opportunity to connect in new ways with residents who have addition…
Technology
Amazon Bedrock
…y to summarize and simplify information, and turn it into forms such as images. Amazon Bedrock is a fully managed service that provides one of the simplest ways for development teams to build and scale generative AI applications with security, privacy, and responsible AI. Using Amazon Bedrock, you can easily experiment with and evaluate high-performi…
Deployment options
cloud
…companies via a single API. These FMs be adapted for your particular use case. Amazon Bedrock is serverless and intuitive to use, so it’s simple and affordable for local councils to experiment with. We are also confident that data is secure. We tested the technology on a comple…
