AI Ethics & Responsible Use Toolkit

What this replaces

Most organisations start AI ethics with generic principles, inconsistent approvals, and scattered documents that do not stand up under customer due diligence or internal audit sampling.

When the pressure arrives - an incident, a complaint, a customer questionnaire, or an audit request - teams scramble to reconstruct what happened and why decisions were made.

This toolkit replaces that with one lightweight, repeatable workflow that gives you:

• consistent triage and proportionality
• clear ownership and approval routes
• a structured decision trail with conditions and monitoring actions
• reusable customer and vendor assurance outputs

It is not a certification, audit, or legal assessment. It supports practical, audit-ready governance in day-to-day use, but does not guarantee certification outcomes.

How it works

Run proportionate governance in three levels

Not every AI use case needs a committee. This workflow supports fast reviews for low-risk cases and deeper review where the risk justifies it.

1. Level 1 review - 15 to 30 minutes
   Low-risk use cases. Complete intake and triage. Capture decision and owner.
2. Level 2 review - 45 to 90 minutes
   Medium-risk use cases. Complete ethical impact assessment and decision conditions. Update register.
3. Level 3 review - 90 minutes plus
   Higher-risk use cases. Deeper assessment, stronger controls, explicit sign-off, and monitoring plan.

Typical format:

• Short working session with the system owner and governance participants
• Evidence prompts captured as you go, not reconstructed later
• Decision conditions recorded so approvals are defensible and repeatable

Keep it alive (ongoing)

The ethical risk register and decision log are designed to be living governance artefacts. You do not rebuild each time. You reuse the same workflow and simply capture what changed.

• Re-run triage when models change, data sources change, or the use case expands
• Use the internal audit checklist to sample decisions and evidence at a practical cadence
• Reuse customer assurance outputs for repeated due diligence requests

What you get (8 artefacts)

This is a complete responsible use workflow and evidence pack - not a single document.

1. Ethics workbook - risk register - decision log - triage (Excel)
   Core workflow tool for intake, triage, decisions, conditions, and ethical risk management.
2. Start Here guide (PDF)
   Step-by-step guidance for running reviews proportionately and consistently.
3. Ethical Impact Assessment template (Word)
   Structured assessment template for medium and higher-risk use cases.
4. AI Ethics governance RACI template (Word)
   Clarifies who reviews, who approves, and who is accountable at each level.
5. Customer AI Assurance Summary template (Word)
   A reusable pack for customer assurance conversations and RFP responses.
6. Vendor Responsible AI Questionnaire Lite (Word)
   A practical vendor questionnaire to support responsible AI supply chain assurance.
7. Public AI Ethics and Responsible Use Statement template (Word)
   Publish a responsible use position without drafting from scratch.
8. Internal Audit Checklist - AI Ethics and Responsible Use (Word)
   Sampling prompts and red flags to test whether decisions are being governed as intended.

Outputs and evidence you can generate

• Decision trail per AI use case: approval, conditions, and accountable owner
• Ethical risk register entries with treatments and monitoring actions
• Repeatable triage results that show proportionality and rationale
• Customer assurance summary for consistent external responses
• Vendor questionnaire outputs to support supplier due diligence
• Internal audit sampling evidence and governance gaps identification

Sample output preview (sanitised)

See the format of the outputs without exposing the working workbook.

Includes:

• Sample triage and decision log extract (dummy data)
• Sample ethical risk register extract (dummy entries and treatments)
• Sample customer assurance summary structure (sanitised)

Download sample outputs (sanitised)

Licence summary (plain English)

• Licensed to a single legal entity (the purchasing organisation)
• Authorised users include employees and individual contractors acting on your behalf
• Outputs may be shared with auditors, customers, regulators, and advisers for assurance
• Toolkit files may not be shared, resold, or reused as a commercial method across other organisations
• Access to the toolkit files is provided for the life of the product. We recommend retaining a local copy

When this is not for you

• You want generic AI awareness material or a simple checklist
• You already operate a fully embedded and audited responsible AI governance framework
• You want automated technical tooling rather than a governance-led decision workflow