The budget will include an £800 million package of technology reforms designed to accelerate outcomes in the NHS and reduce administrative tasks for the police.
The Chancellor said there was “too much waste in the system” on Sunday as he announced a series of measures that will free up time for people on the front line of public services.
As part of Treasury reforms, police will use drones to assess incidents such as traffic collisions and artificial intelligence (AI) will be deployed to reduce screening times by a third.
The changes in Wednesday’s Budget have the potential to deliver £1.8 billion worth of benefits to public sector productivity by 2029, the department said.
The move is about reversing the high-spending, high-tax approach the UK Government has adopted to rescue the country from the energy shocks caused by the coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, officials said.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said: “We must not fall into the trap of thinking that spending more will buy us better public services.
“There is too much waste in the system, and we want public servants to get back to the most important job: educating our children, keeping us safe and treating us when we are sick.
“So our plan is about reaping the rewards of efficiencies, from faster access to MRIs for patients to hundreds of thousands of police hours freed up to respond to burglaries or domestic violence incidents.”
In the healthcare sector, the Treasury said more than 130,000 patients a year, including those waiting for cancer results, could expect to receive their test results sooner as a result of at least 100 MRI scanners in England being updated with artificial intelligence.
The pioneering technology will be trained to recognize patterns in scans through machine learning, which officials said could cut scanning times by a third.
In policing, the Treasury said its reforms would help deliver the Police Efficiency Review, which would find up to 38 million hours of officers’ time could be saved each year.
Mr Hunt will provide £230 million to roll out timesaving technology, including funding for automatic redacting of personal information during evidence collection.
The process will apply to badges in burglaries, irrelevant faces on body-worn cameras and license plates in video evidence.
In order to increase the speed of service, interviews with witnesses and victims via video calls will be approved.
A pilot who allows officers to use a drone for first response to certain incidents, such as traffic collisions, will also be given the green light.
The Treasury said the drone information would provide feedback to help forces assess the severity of the incident and the resources required to deal with it.
It was also stated that artificial intelligence will be used in the non-emergency service of 101 to prioritize callers.
Other measures in the £800 million package include:
– £170 million for justice system reforms designed to save up to 55,000 hours of administrative time a year. Jury packets will be digitized and there will be new software to make parole decisions easier.
– £165 million will be allocated to reduce local government overspending of £670 million on children’s social care places across England last year, by introducing 200 additional children’s social care places and reducing reliance on costly children’s emergency centres.
– A £34 million fund to reduce fraud by expanding the use of AI across government to make it easier to detect and catch fraudsters; It is estimated that this move will save £100 million.
– Accelerating the rollout of the Department for Work and Pensions’ existing program to modernize its services and move away from paper-based communications, with an investment of £17 million.
– Reducing the time it takes planning officers to process applications by 30% through a new AI pilot.
– Increasing support for children with additional needs through a £105 million fund to help open an additional 15 special free schools.
Darren Jones, Labour’s shadow chief secretary at the Treasury, said the announcement amounted to a “substantive spin”.
“Nothing in Britain could be better than the Conservative Party after 14 years of economic failure,” he said.
“Millions of people are left on hospital waiting lists, our schools are collapsing and our streets are less safe. But yet all the Chancellor offers is more nonsense with no substance.
“It’s time for change. “Only Labor offers a long-term plan to grow our economy to deliver more jobs, more investment and put more money in people’s pockets.”
Mr Hunt is under pressure to deliver tax cuts in what could be the Conservative government’s final fiscal statement ahead of the next widely expected general election in the autumn.
As we discuss the Chancellor’s figures for the coming days before finalizing his Budget, it appears that official forecasts for the “gain margin” are moving against the Government against the Chancellor’s plans for debt to fall within five years.
Treasury sources said this week that Mr Hunt was considering further cuts to public spending as a way of delivering tax cuts demanded by some Conservative MPs.
The announcement to improve public sector efficiency may be a move designed to free up money for pre-election giveaways.
The Office for Budget Responsibility told Mr Hunt on Wednesday there was a headroom of £12.8bn, The Sunday Times reported; This is £2bn less than the figure on which the Treasury was previously said to have based its calculations.
The newspaper said the Chancellor will meet Chancellor Rishi Sunak on Sunday evening to make a final decision on whether a 2p cut in income tax is affordable.