How Local Authorities Can Deal with ‘Email Tigers’ in the AI Era

Local authorities are well accustomed to managing complaints, grievances and compensation claims. However, they now face an emerging challenge of AI-assisted complaints that’s creating new complexities. Kella Bowers, a Partner and Head of Insurance at Forbes Solicitors, looks at why extra due diligence is required to separate fact from fiction.

Public sector bodies are facing a surge in complaints. The Independent recently reported that councils, schools and police forces are among the organisations that have seen a spike in grievances, with this being driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Large Language Models (LLMs) lower the barriers to producing persuasive and professional-looking correspondence, helping fuel the rise of the so-called email tigers. These highly persistent complainants use increasingly sophisticated emails to pursue grievances, often adopting a level of assertiveness and confrontation that differs from their face-to-face interactions. From behind a keyboard, email tigers are happy to bare their teeth to project confidence, authority and persistence to make their argument heard and get what they want.

AI is being used by email tigers to roar even louder, bombarding local authorities with complaints.

Surge in AI-assisted complaints

A global research paper, Characterizing Agentic Flooding of Government Services, highlights 84 cases across 11 countries where public bodies have attributed the public use of AI to contributing to a surge in requests for freedom of information requests, planning consultation responses and civil court claims. Researchers noted that LLMs are generating legally plausible text at negligible costs.

The BBC also reported that local councils face a rising tide of AI-assisted complaints. Reporters highlighted that AI makes complaining more accessible and effective, while the organisation, Lawyers in Local Government, estimates it would need to double its current workforce to deal with the massive rise in complaints. It’s worth noting that the organisation represents 5,600 lawyers working in local authorities.

While the growth in AI-assisted complaints is concerning for local authorities, it is only part of the problem. Email tigers are transforming the claims landscape by introducing new levels of complexity that require greater due diligence, scrutiny and emotional intelligence. Local authorities and insurers must increasingly separate fact from fiction to distinguish between claims with genuine merit and those being pursued by opportunists looking to exploit goodwill or perceived weaknesses in the system.

The use of AI is turning complaints and claims into multi-page documents. What may have once been a short email, can now be pages and pages of in-depth argument containing references to legislation, alleged breaches of duty, requests for disclosure and demands for compensation. At first glance, such claims can appear well-substantiated, but there’s a real risk of AI hallucinations that mean grievances are built on errors and misquoted legislation.

Another issue is how claims are framed. Generative AI tools tend to be designed to be helpful, but this can inadvertently mean they act in a non-conciliatory manner. When people describe a negative experience, LLMs may produce responses that reinforce an individual’s rights, strengthening their belief they’ve been wronged. This can create a sense of entitlement that encourages an email tiger to aggressively seek redress and can also lead to an individual’s detachment from the reality of the situation. Claimants become increasingly convinced they have a strong case, even when circumstances are either ambiguous or relatively minor. As a result, claims can become protracted.

Reassessing frameworks

Addressing the issue of AI-assisted complaints requires local authorities to reassess their complaints and claims frameworks. Processes should be firmly evidence-led, ensuring the assessment of any claim cuts through to the facts of the case, rather than being distracted by the presentation of correspondence. This must be rooted in robust risk management and incident reporting processes, as these measures provide a solid starting point to objectively evaluate claims against.

Local authorities should be concentrating on the effectiveness of incident reporting because it can provide an evidential baseline. Robust procedures can create a clear record of what happened, who was there, what was done in response, and what happened next. It’s an extremely valuable process for gathering testimony from the people involved, while events are fresh in their minds.

The reassessment of processes should also consider training for staff to help them spot AI-generated correspondence, and how to triage this. It can be useful to involve legal professionals earlier in the process to identify any AI hallucinations where legislation and statutory rights are being incorrectly referenced. Similarly, training and triaging can help quickly spot repetitive and unsupported assertions. It’s also worth exploring the possibility of AI tools and agents to support these processes. For example, LLMs could be trained to analyse, and fact check correspondence for misquoted legislation.

In an era where anyone can generate a persuasive claim with just a few prompts, the most effective defence against email tigers is better risk management and evidence gathering. This will help local authorities to quickly and confidently focus on the facts to deal with genuine claims, while efficiently handling speculative and unsupported assertions.