Frequently Asked Questions
General
What is Ask:Enact?
Ask:Enact is a decision-support platform that helps professionals access legislation, guidance and local services when supporting people who may be at risk of housing insecurity or related challenges. The system allows practitioners to ask questions in natural language and receive responses grounded in verified sources. Ask:Enact brings together legislation, policy guidance and local service information so that professionals can quickly identify appropriate support options. The platform is designed to support conversations and improve awareness of available help. It does not replace professional judgement or act as a case management system.
Who is Ask:Enact designed for?
Ask:Enact is designed for professionals working in services where people may disclose housing risk or wider vulnerability. This includes organisations in housing, policing, health, social work, community justice and third sector services. The platform helps practitioners quickly identify relevant guidance and support pathways so that people receive consistent and informed advice.
Does Ask:Enact replace professional judgement?
No. Ask:Enact is designed to support professionals by making relevant legislation, guidance and service information easier to access during conversations with members of the public. The platform provides contextual information and potential support options based on verified sources. The professional using the system remains responsible for assessing the situation and deciding what action to take.
Data and Privacy
What user data does Ask:Enact store?
Ask:Enact stores limited account information such as a user’s username, email address and platform preferences. This information is required to manage user access and maintain system security. The platform is not designed as a case management system and should not be used to store personal information about individuals being supported. Organisations using Ask:Enact manage user accounts through authorised administrators who control access to the system.
Are conversations stored?
Prompts and responses may be logged during testing and system improvement phases to support debugging, audit and system performance monitoring. Logs are stored within the secure Azure hosting environment used by Ask:Enact. Users are instructed not to include personally identifiable information when using the platform because the system is designed to support professional conversations rather than record individual cases.
How long are logs retained?
Interaction logs are retained only for operational purposes such as debugging, monitoring and system improvement. Retention periods are defined within Ask:Enact data governance policies and are aligned with UK GDPR and organisational information governance requirements. Logs are securely deleted once they are no longer required for operational purposes.
Does anyone use Ask:Enact data to train its AI models?
No. Prompts and responses processed through the platform are not used to train AI models. Data submitted through the platform remains within the customer environment and is processed only to generate responses within the Ask:Enact system.
Can different organisations see each other's data?
No. Each organisation using Ask:Enact operates within the same application but their data is logically isolated. This ensures users cannot access information belonging to other organisations. Authentication controls and application-level safeguards enforce this separation. For organisations with additional security requirements, infrastructure isolation options can also be provided.
Compliance
Is Ask:Enact GDPR compliant?
Ask:Enact is designed to operate in accordance with UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. The platform minimises the personal data it processes and is not intended to store information about individual cases. Organisations using Ask:Enact are responsible for ensuring their staff follow internal data protection policies when using the system. Data processing arrangements, retention policies and access controls are designed to support compliance with public sector information governance standards.
Is Ask:Enact secure for public sector use?
Ask:Enact is built using enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure and security controls designed for use by public sector organisations. The platform uses secure authentication, encrypted storage and controlled access permissions to protect system data. Infrastructure is hosted within Microsoft Azure and follows established cloud security standards. Organisations can also define their own access permissions and administrative controls to ensure the system aligns with their internal security policies.
Knowledge and Content
Where does the information in Ask:Enact come from?
Ask:Enact responses are grounded in a curated knowledge base that includes legislation, national guidance and local service information. When a user asks a question, the system retrieves relevant information from this knowledge base before generating a response. This retrieval process helps ensure responses are based on verified sources rather than relying only on the model’s original training data.
Who maintains the knowledge base?
The knowledge base is maintained through a combination of central and local administration. National legislation and guidance are maintained by the Ask:Enact team to ensure consistency across the platform. Local service information and organisational procedures can be maintained by authorised administrators within each organisation so that information remains accurate and relevant to the local area.
Will two users always receive the same answer?
Responses are grounded in the same underlying legislation and guidance, which ensures the core information remains consistent. However, responses may vary slightly depending on how a question is asked because the system interprets natural language queries and retrieves the most relevant information available.
Technology
Is Ask:Enact a mobile app or a webpage?
Ask:Enact currently runs as a secure web application. Users access it through a standard web browser on a computer, tablet or mobile device rather than installing a separate mobile app. This approach allows organisations to deploy the system quickly without managing software installations on individual devices. A dedicated mobile application may be developed in the future if there is demand, but the current web application is designed to work on mobile devices already.
What AI technology does Ask:Enact use?
Ask:Enact uses a pre-trained enterprise large language model combined with a retrieval system that pulls relevant information from a curated knowledge base before generating a response. This architecture allows the system to answer questions using current legislation, guidance and service information rather than relying only on the model’s original training data.
Does Ask:Enact train its own AI model?
Not at present. Ask:Enact currently uses a pre-trained enterprise model and focuses development on how the model is orchestrated and governed within the platform. Hosting models directly within Ask:Enact infrastructure and researching domain-specific training is part of the platform’s future roadmap.
How does Ask:Enact prevent incorrect responses?
The platform uses retrieval-based responses grounded in verified documents together with automated validation checks and system guardrails. These mechanisms help ensure responses remain relevant to the user’s question and supported by information in the knowledge base.
Security and Access
How is access to Ask:Enact controlled?
Access to Ask:Enact is managed through role-based access control. Authorised administrators manage user accounts and permissions within the platform so that individuals can only access the parts of the system relevant to their role.
How are system logs stored?
System logs are stored within the secure Azure hosting environment used by Ask:Enact and are encrypted at rest. Access to logs is restricted to authorised administrators responsible for maintaining the platform.
Testing and Quality
How is Ask:Enact tested?
Ask:Enact is developed using a test-driven development approach where automated tests are created alongside the software. Testing takes place continuously during development and across multiple pre-production environments before any feature is released. Partner organisations may also participate in user acceptance testing to confirm the system behaves as expected in real operational scenarios.
How Ask:Enact ensures reliable responses
Ask:Enact uses a retrieval-based architecture that grounds responses in legislation, guidance and curated service information. This approach helps ensure answers remain relevant, traceable and aligned with verified sources.