UK public bodies hit by surge of AI-generated complaints

UK local authorities, MP offices and tribunals are being clogged by AI-drafted complaints that have grown from around two pages to roughly ten times that length, with one complaint stretching to about 200 pages, The Guardian reports.

The scale shows in the numbers. Transport for London logged 4,769 freedom of information requests in 2025-26, a 5% rise on its previous peak. Employment tribunal single-claim cases opened between April and June jumped 28% year-on-year to 14,000, leaving roughly 70,000 open single claims by the end of June.

"Half the emails we receive are some form of AI," says Hollie Wickens, a senior caseworker in a Labour MP's office. Deborah Evans, chief executive of Lawyers in Local Government, says AI can make a complaint "sound incredibly professional, very formal," but adds that "local authorities have one pot of money and don't get extra money because of more complaints." Vonnie Sandlan, head of office for Labour MP Graeme Downie, describes staff as "exhausted" and "stretched to the limits and working more hours than they are paid." Lisa Gillmore of the GMB union puts it flatly: "AI is not lightening the load in MPs' offices."

The pattern has a label now. Researchers at the Hertie School in Berlin, the Cooperative AI Foundation and GovAI have called it "agentic flooding." The AI-drafted material is often repetitive, laced with unrelated passages, and sometimes cites laws or case law that do not apply in the UK. Some councils are already weighing AI of their own to summarise incoming letters and draft replies, and some ombudsmen are introducing limits on complaint length and form-based intake with attachment caps.