AI literacy in municipalities: a legal obligation

Dutch municipalities face a historic shift: alongside tens of thousands of municipal civil servants, AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Copilot and Perplexity are this year entering the daily work of local government. With a new part of the EU AI Act taking effect on 2 February 2025, this development gains an extra dimension. While many municipalities are still wrestling with ethical questions or limiting themselves to basic digitisation, a crucial development risks being overlooked: from early 2025, concrete requirements apply to the AI literacy of professionals who work with AI systems. Instructing AI tools effectively (“prompting”) thus becomes not only a practical necessity but also a legal obligation for the modern civil servant, no less fundamental than policy development, public services or drafting proposals for the municipal council. The same obligation applies to local authorities across the EU.

Civil servants discussing the EU AI Act, generated with AI.

Public sector expertise in the age of AI

This development asks for more than basic digital skills. It requires a considered combination of administrative expertise, systematic thinking and AI awareness. Municipalities that invest now in solid AI training give their staff the skills to write structured prompts. Take a policy officer working on the local energy transition, who asks an AI tool to assess a plan on: “1) alignment with the new Environment and Planning Act (Omgevingswet) and the municipal heat transition vision, 2) impact on vulnerable households in line with recent socio-economic research, 3) financial feasibility within the multi-year investment plan, and 4) opportunities for resident participation under the new participation bylaw.” A structured prompt like this produces a usable first analysis that still needs administrative review, but speeds up the process considerably.

Practical applications and public responsibility

The EU AI Act requires organisations to ensure, “to their best extent”, a sufficient level of AI literacy among staff who use AI systems. For municipalities this is a concrete mandate to develop AI training programmes, introduce quality checks and draw up ethical guidelines. These requirements apply to all AI systems, with particular attention to transparency, explainability and democratic oversight.

When drafting policy documents, a well-formulated prompt can serve as the starting point for a first draft that brings in the relevant legislation and policy frameworks. For policy research, civil servants can instruct AI tools to analyse large volumes of data and documents for specific trends or effects. In public participation, AI can help analyse consultation responses and identify common themes. These applications do not replace administrative judgement, but they enrich the policy process in ways that were previously unthinkable.

Reorganising the municipal organisation

Bringing AI into the modern municipality, combined with the requirements of the EU AI Act, calls for a fundamental redesign of work processes. Municipalities need to redesign their workflows around AI-supported processes, with public values, quality checks and ethical considerations first. That means investing in:

• Ongoing AI literacy training for civil servants at every level
• Best practices for different policy areas
• Quality checks for AI-generated analyses
• Drawing up and enforcing ethical guidelines for AI use
• A culture that encourages sharing knowledge about effective prompting strategies
• Regular evaluation of AI competences within the organisation

Two policy makers thinking about the future of The Hague, generated with AI.

A new era for municipal organisations

The legal obligation of AI literacy for municipalities marks a new era. The urgency for municipalities to embrace this development can hardly be overstated. Developments in AI systems follow each other at high speed, while the law sets concrete requirements for AI literacy. Municipalities that do not act now risk both an unbridgeable gap in public services and possible sanctions under the EU AI Act.

The future of local government lies in integrating AI effectively and responsibly as a complement to administrative expertise, not as a replacement for it. The civil servant of the future needs to be not only well versed in public administration, but also AI-capable: able to tackle complex social issues with a combination of human expertise and AI support. This new reality calls for civil servants who understand both the technical and ethical sides of AI and can apply that knowledge effectively in their daily work.

Municipalities that invest now in AI literacy and prompting skills are building not only compliance with the EU AI Act, but also their ability to deliver effective public services in a fast-changing society. In modern public administration, more than ever: those who prompt, stay.