However this relief is restricted to 10 per cent which means that your tax bill will only be cut by £520 a

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However, this relief is restricted to 10 per cent, which means that your tax bill will only be cut by £520 a year. The inheritance tax threshold increased by £8,000 to £242,000.. One of the biggest challenges facing the Government is improving recruitment to the public sector, but key workers were unimpressed by the Budget. One of the biggest challenges facing the Government is improving recruitment to the public sector, but key workers were unimpressed by the Budget. About £200m earmarked for attracting new teachers is likely to be in the form of £2,000 bonuses for people returning to the profession. However teachers on the ground said it would do little to improve the morale of staff already in schools.Greg McGee, an English teacher in his third year at Newlands School, Middlesborough, will be £164 better off a year because of increases in the personal tax allowance and widening of the 10 per cent rate. He accused the Government of failing to realise the difficulties of teachers who joined the profession before incentives were introduced.Mr McGee, 26, earns £18,000 a year and owes £8,000 in student and graduate loans. He is paying back £80 a month now and will have to pay £150 per month more from April.He said he had not benefited from the £6,000 grants for graduates training as teachers or the £2,000 "golden hellos" for new teachers because he joined the profession too early.

He cannot apply for the grants available for exceptional teachers because they are only available after seven years working."I am missing out at both ends. My concerns as a young, energetic teacher are not being addressed. People like me are not going to stay in the profession unless things change," he said.The Chancellor offered no extra money for the police at a time when chief constables are finding it difficult to recruit and retain officers. Dave Rodgers, 40, a sergeant with the Metropolitan Police, will be £362 a year better off after the Budget, but said he was concerned that no more resources were being provided for his professional colleagues.Sgt Rodgers, who lives with his wife, Debra, a travel company worker, and their two children in a £150,000 house in Hextable, Kent, gains largely from the introduction of children's tax credit and the increase in child benefit. But his £38,000 salary makes him a high-rate taxpayer and means that the couple will receive only £250 in children's tax credit, instead of the maximum £520 Mrs Rodgers earns around £10,000. The increase in the lower-rate band will bring the family an extra £86 a year.Sgt Rodgers said he was disappointed that Mr Brown had not announced a reduction in the base rate of income tax but said the increased investment in schools and hospitals was "long overdue".He said: "We are better off as a family and of course I am happy with that. But being a police officer, I was dismayed that he has not made any announcements for increased budgets for the police service, which is at breaking point."The Royal College of Nursing's general secretary, Christine Hancock, welcomed the £135m for recruiting more NHS staff, but said the Government had to target nurses already working.

"Pay is still a key factor in improving nurse recruitment and retention and we'd like to see this new money targeted at continuing the trend of above-inflation pay increases," she said.. Few Chancellors of the Exchequer have been able to come to the House of Commons, as Gordon Brown did yesterday, and recite such an enviable set of economic statistics in the weeks or months before a general election. Few Chancellors of the Exchequer have been able to come to the House of Commons, as Gordon Brown did yesterday, and recite such an enviable set of economic statistics in the weeks or months before a general election. Of those who have managed to find things to boast about, such as Roy Jenkins in 1970 or Nigel Lawson in 1987, still fewer have been able to combine a strong economic position with so propitious a set of political circumstances. The combination of a fiscal surplus of more than £20bn with an opinion-poll lead of over 20 per cent is the sort of double whammy that any of Mr Brown's predecessors would have killed for. Few could dispute that, whether by good luck or by good judgement, Mr Brown has, for the most part, presided over an unusually benign period in our economic history, building on the foundations left by his Conservative forebears. It is certainly unprecedented for a Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer to be so well placed, and it is only fair to acknowledge that record.