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BBCThe Budget will include an £800m technology reform package aimed at freeing up time for the NHS and police, the Treasury has announced.
Prime Minister Jeremy Hunt said ahead of the March 6 announcement that there was “too much waste in the system”.
As part of the reforms, AI will be used to cut NHS scan times by a third, and police will deploy drones to respond to incidents such as road accidents.
Labor said the package amounted to “hollow spin”.
The Treasury expects the proposed technology reforms to deliver up to £1.8bn worth of benefits to public sector productivity by 2029.
“There is too much waste in our system, and we want our public servants to get back to the most important job: teaching our children, keeping them safe and treating them when they are sick,” Hunt said.
“That’s why our plan is to provide patients with rapid access to MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and free up hundreds of thousands of police hours to respond to robberies and domestic violence cases. The idea is to reap the benefits of productivity.”
The announcement will be made as follows Mr Hunt faces increasing pressure from Tory colleagues to deliver tax cuts when he presents the budget on Wednesday.
The Treasury said the move would see 130,000 patients a year, including those awaiting cancer results, receive tests completed faster as a result of at least 100 MRI scanners in the UK being upgraded to AI. He said he would be able to accept it.
In the police sector, he added that the reforms would help carry out a police productivity review, which found up to 38 million hours of police time could be saved annually.
Other key measures in the £800m investment include:
- £170m invested to save up to 55,000 administrative hours a year in the justice system with new software to digitize jury documents and streamline parole decisions
- Spending £165m to reduce last year’s £670m of local authority overspending on children’s social care homes across England, making an additional 200 children’s social care places available; Reduce reliance on expensive emergency facilities for children.
- £34m to reduce fraud through widespread use of AI across government agencies – expected to save $100m
Darren Jones, Labour’s shadow chancellor of the exchequer, said: ‘After 14 years of Tory economic failure, there has never been a better time in the UK.
“Millions of people are on hospital waiting lists, schools are collapsing, streets are becoming less safe, and yet the Prime Minister is offering nothing but hollow fantasies.”
The BBC’s Faisal Islam reports that the budget was brought forward as the government wants to leave room to announce voter-friendly tax cuts ahead of this year’s general election.
The company had initially expected to have around £30bn of ‘spare space’ at the start of the year after borrowing costs had fallen significantly, but this figure had fallen by the middle of last month to around £13bn, the level of November. The BBC understands that it has returned to the pound.
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