The UK government has unveiled an £800 million investment plan as it seeks to leverage technology to reform public services including policing and healthcare.
The investment was revealed as part of UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s Spring Budget, which was delivered in the House of Commons today.
During his speech in front of fellow MPs, Hunt claimed there was “too much waste” in public systems, adding that technology could be used to find more efficiency in the National Health Service (NHS) and policing nationwide.
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.
“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,” Hunt said.
“That’s why our plan is about reaping the rewards of productivity, from faster access to MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) for patients to hundreds of thousands of police hours freed up to attend burglaries or incidents of domestic abuse.”
The investment into the NHS could see as many as 130,000 patients a year receive test results quicker because of at least 100 MRI scanners in England being upgraded with AI.
“Backed by £4.2 billion in funding, the plan will allow public services to invest in new technologies like AI, replace outdated IT systems, free up frontline workers from time-consuming admin tasks and take action to reduce costs down the line,” said Hunt.
“The NHS will receive an additional £3.4 billion as part of this to invest in new tech and digital transformation, including making the NHS app a single front door for patients, piloting new AI to halve form-filling times for doctors, rolling out universal electronic patient records, and over one hundred upgraded AI-fitted scanners so doctors can read MRI scans more accurately and quickly.”
Additionally, government plans included £800 million to be invested to “boost productivity across other public services”. This will include £230 million for drones and controversial new technologies such as facial recognition to free up police time for more frontline work.
However, from Michal Szymczak, who is head of AI strategy at tech consultancy Zartis, criticised the government for not laying out more detail about its plans for the public sector.
He said: “While today’s UK Spring Budget Statement has paid lip service to AI playing a part of investments across healthcare and public sector, it’s disappointing we didn’t hear more specifics.
“Considering we’re dealing with a technology here that is poised to change the world, it feels like an oversight for the UK government not to address it more thoroughly. It would have been good to see more transparency over how exactly the UK plans on staying on top of the AI power struggle against major players like the US and China.”
Taking a leading position in the global artificial intelligence race has been a key goal for Rishi Sunak’s government since he succeeded Liz Truss as Prime Minister in 2022. This included hosting the first ever AI Safety Summit last year, plus major investments into the sector.
Prior to budget day, the government revealed plans to announce significant further investment into AI by doubling the £100 million investment into the Alan Turing Institute that was announced last year.
The institute, named after the British WW2 codebreaker, is the UK’s national hub for data science and artificial intelligence (AI).
An extra £100m spread over five years will go towards three key areas where AI is poised to make a big difference: in healthcare discoveries, protecting the environment and bolstering national defence.
The government also announced a new £7.4m upskilling fund pilot that aims to help SMEs develop AI skills of the future and unlock new opportunities in the space. It comes ahead of the UK’s SME Digital Adoption Taskforce launch.
“The taskforce will investigate how best to support the adoption of digital technology by SMEs to boost their productivity,” the budget document reads.
“The work of the taskforce will support that of the AI Opportunity Forum, which brings pioneering companies together to encourage AI adoption across the private sector to boost productivity, fuel innovation and deliver growth in all areas of the economy.”
According to Erin Nicholson, global head of data protection and privacy at global tech consultancy, Thoughtworks, the budget highlights how the UK is “punching above its weight” in the AI sector.
“Right now, it’s placed 4th internationally in the Global AI Index, thanks to a consistently high calibre pool of tech talent,” added Nicholson.
“However, to keep pace with this, the Spring Budget needed to include funding for Data and AI education.
“The Global AI Index shows the UK is lagging significantly when it comes to its AI ‘operating environment’ – which is essentially the public’s opinion on artificial intelligence. The nation has work to do to educate the public on AI and its usage. Funding could have been allocated to add AI topics to the national curriculum to bridge the gap between understanding and awareness.
An announcement that followed plans revealed in the Autumn Statement, was around the Mansion House Compact, which saw the UK overhaul pension regulation to fuel investment and growth in the tech sector.
Industry had heaped pressure on the government to do more to unlock the nation’s estimated £4 trillion pound pension pot, which was stymied from investing in tech startups due to layers of pensions and financial services regulation.
In November, Hunt announced a £320 million plan aimed at getting the UK’s pension pots working for both investors and tech startups looking to scale in their home territory.
Hunt said the government wanted to “make sure there are vehicles to make it easier for pension funds to invest in UK growth opportunities” under the Long-term Investment for Technology and Science scheme (LIFTs).
The LIFTS proposal was launched last year with the aim of facilitating greater investment into UK science and technology companies, and the first asset managers to participate were announced today (6 March).
Schroders Capital, part of UK-listed asset manager Schroders, has been awarded £150m by the British Business Bank to invest into UK science and technology companies, with Phoenix Group matching the investment. In addition, the British Business Bank has awarded ICG £100m to invest in life sciences companies based in the UK. This is also being matched by Phoenix.
Finally, the government also revealed plans to recoup around £205 million over the next five years from tax investigations into cryptocurrency investors through changes to the tax self-assessment process. The changes mean crypto assets will be listed separately from the 2024-25 tax year.
Neela Chauhan, partner of UHY Hacker Young, explained the implications of these changes: “From 2027 it will be easier to receive data from other countries on cryptocurrency accounts. This data will be received under what is called the Common Reporting Standard.”
“Given the recent surge in Bitcoin and other crypto values we would expect the underpaid tax in this area to be far more.”
“Many UK investors in crypto assets don’t understand that they owe tax or deliberately avoid paying the tax they owe on capital gains. Many UK investors also think that the crypto assets they hold offshore are not traceable by HMRC.”
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