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Budget wins: Chancellor Jeremy Hunt
Last week’s budget included 17 measures you may have missed, from renovating city halls to shorter wait times for passports:
1) Are you traveling abroad this Easter? Tourists should wait just three weeks for their passports to be renewed as improvements should make ten-week waiting times a thing of the past.
2) Pensioners are bracing for another income boost as the Government recommits to protecting the triple lock. In 2024-25, the full annual basic state pension will be £3,700 higher in cash terms than in 2010, £11,502 a year.
3) All NHS Trusts will have electronic patient records by March 2026, ending their reliance on paper records and ensuring patients can easily access records across all NHS systems.
4) D-Day veterans will be honored at an event to mark the 80th anniversary of the landings, which the Government has promised to fund.
5) Although we have long since put away the pennants and finished the last of our cucumber sandwiches, the Queen’s legacy lives on through an additional £5 million for the Platinum Jubilee Village Halls Fund, to help village halls across England stay at the heart of of their communities. .
6) Common conditions will soon be able to be treated without needing a GP appointment or a prescription, as the Government introduces Pharmacy First, a service to provide patients with treatment for seven common conditions directly from a pharmacy.
7) The Government will fund projects to develop emerging talent in the British film industry. It will support the National Film and Television School’s plan to expand its teaching space so it can offer up to 200 more learning places a year, new cutting-edge courses including the use of artificial intelligence and better facilities for disabled students.
8) £16 million will be invested in prison workshops to boost employability and rehabilitate prisoners.
9) Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon and Laurence Olivier are just some of the famous actors who have graced the boards of the National Theatre. Now those boards are set to be replaced, as the Government pledged £26.4 million to refurbish the theatre’s stage and infrastructure.
10) Will your child or grandchild be going to school this September? The additional funding for schools will represent a cash increase in average funding per pupil to £7,690 in 2024-25.
eleven) All NHS staff will receive digital passports and access to a new staff app to reduce bureaucracy when moving between different parts of the NHS and eliminate the need to redo training courses, meaning more time can be spent on patient care.
12) Get ready for RoboCop! The Government is committing £230m to pilot police technology programmes, such as deploying drones as first responders, facial recognition and automating 101 call triage to allow officers to spend more time on the frontline.
13) Ministers are also piloting the use of artificial intelligence to help planning authorities streamline their processes, so plans take 30 months instead of the average seven years.
14) A crackdown on cybercriminals is underway as the Government pledged £34 million to expand the Public Sector Fraud Authority by using artificial intelligence to combat fraud across the public sector. This should make it easier to detect, stop and catch fraudsters, saving £100 million to the public purse.
fifteen) Do you have an aspiring astronaut in the family? The Government has pledged £10 million to the SaxaVord spaceport in Shetland, to support orbital launch in 2024.
sixteen) Known as the home of the big banks, Canary Wharf could also be seen as home to hundreds of homes as the Government pledged to deliver up to 750 homes in the east London area.
17) By 2031, there will be an additional 24,000 nursing and midwifery training places available as the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan invests in the biggest ever expansion in the recruitment and training of NHS staff.