The UK government has adopted a pro-AI stance to help transform public service delivery in the face of severe financial pressures, but the path to translate this vision into responsible AI practice remains ill-defined. While UK policy is often set at the national level, local authorities are responsible for most public service delivery, and the rapid advance of AI-first narratives in the public sector is exposing fault lines in knowledge and practice at this national-local interface. This paper examines how responsible AI is interpreted and implemented at the interface between the UK's central government and local authorities, taking the high-stakes area of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) as a case study. We present a thematic analysis of 17 semi-structured interviews with policymakers, practitioners, and third-sector professionals to identify barriers and enabling conditions for responsible AI where national policy meets local practice. We identify five interconnected challenges facing local authorities: shadow usage of AI and data privacy risks, market-government asymmetry in AI provision, insufficient workforce readiness, a lack of standardised definitions and measurements, and gaps in human accountability. For each, participants proposed actionable steps, from strengthening data protection frameworks and rebalancing the market-government relationship to enhancing workforce capacity. Our examination of SEND brings these challenges into sharper focus, showing how high-stakes decisions affecting vulnerable children and families intensify tensions around accountability, fairness, and human oversight, exposing the limits of a principle-based regulatory approach. We argue that responsible public sector AI requires both national policy adjustments and structural reforms to institutional capacity, values, and governance mechanisms at the local level.

翻译：英国政府采取支持人工智能的立场，以在面临严峻财政压力时助力公共服务交付转型，但将这一愿景转化为负责任的AI实践之路仍模糊不清。尽管英国政策常由国家层面制定，但多数公共服务交付由地方当局负责，而公共部门"AI优先"叙事的快速推进正暴露出国家-地方接合部在知识与实践层面的断层线。本文以高风险的《特殊教育需求和残疾》领域为案例，考察负责任AI在英国中央政府与地方当局接合部的解读与实施方式。通过对17位政策制定者、从业者和第三部门专业人士的半结构化访谈进行主题分析，我们识别出国家政策与地方实践交汇处负责任AI面临的障碍与促进条件。研究揭示了地方当局面临的五大相互关联挑战：AI的隐性使用与数据隐私风险、AI供给中的市场-政府不对称、员工准备不足、缺乏标准化定义与衡量标准，以及人类问责缺口。针对每项挑战，参与者提出了从强化数据保护框架、平衡市场-政府关系到提升员工能力的可行行动方案。对SEND领域的剖析使这些挑战更为凸显，表明影响弱势儿童与家庭的高风险决策如何加剧了问责、公平与人类监督方面的紧张态势，并暴露出基于原则的监管方法的局限性。我们认为，负责任的公共部门AI既需要国家政策调整，也需要对地方层面的机构能力、价值观与治理机制进行结构性改革。