Police will be using drones to quicker assess traffic collisions and other incidents, the Treasury says
The Budget will contain an £800m package of technology reforms aimed at freeing up NHS and police time, the Treasury has announced.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said ahead of the 6 March 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 the police will deploy drones to incidents such as traffic collisions.
Labour said the package amounted to “spin without substance”.
The Treasury is hoping that the proposed technological reforms will deliver as much as £1.8bn worth of benefits to public sector productivity by 2029.
“There is too much waste in the system and we want public servants to get back to doing what matters most: teaching our children, keeping us safe and treating us when we’re sick,” Mr Hunt said.
“That’s why our plan is about reaping the rewards of productivity, from faster access to MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) s for patients to hundreds of thousands of police hours freed up to attend burglaries or incidents of domestic abuse.”
The Treasury said the latest move will mean 130,000 patients a year – including those waiting for cancer results – receive their completed tests quicker as a result of at least 100 MRI scanners in England being upgraded with AI.
In policing, it added that the reforms will help to deliver on the Police Productivity Review, which it said found that up to 38 million hours of officer time could be saved every year.
Other key measures in the £800m investment include:
- £170m to save up to 55,000 hours a year of administrative time in the justice system through digitising jury bundles and new software to streamline parole decisions
- £165m to cut last year’s local authority overspend of £670m on children’s social care places across England by making 200 additional child social care places available, reducing the reliance on costly emergency places for children
- £34m to reduce fraud by a wider AI usage across government agencies – a move expected to save $100m
Darren Jones, Labour’s shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said: “Nothing in Britain is better off after 14 years of Conservative economic failure.
“Millions of people are stuck on hospital waiting lists, our schools are crumbling and our streets are less safe. And yet all the Chancellor is offering is more spin without substance.”
The Budget comes with the government hoping to have scope to unveil voter-friendly tax cuts ahead of a general election this year, the BBC’s Faisal Islam reports.
It initially hoped for “headroom” of about £30bn to spend at the start of the year after its borrowing costs fell sharply, but the BBC understands this figure had returned to its November level of roughly £13bn by the middle of last month.
