Chancellor George Osborne's Autumn Statement today has laid out plans for spending.

The Chancellor also announced there would be a second Enterprise Zone for the Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire district council areas, alongside the Science Vale Enterprise Zone established in 2011.

The zones offer incentives to businesses to locate their firms in the area and can create new jobs.

Here's our guide to how what George Osborne has said today could affect you. Scroll down for:

  • Tax credits
  • Policing
  • Pensions
  • Housing
  • Councils and Council Tax
  • Education

TAX CREDITS

  • A cut in tax credits expected by thousands of Oxfordshire families was averted today after the Government said it was scrapping the proposal.
  • The current pace of changes to working and child tax credits will remain the same. The system is already due to become part of Universal Credit.

Mum-of-two Safia Baker, 45, from the Barton estate in Oxford, said it was a relief that the Government was not going ahead with the tax credits cut.

He added: "I think they have already cut enough so I am quite pleased that they have decided against their initial proposals."

POLICING

  • There will be no cuts at all to the policing budget.
  • Police and Crime Commissioner Antony Stansfeld had said 1,000 police jobs could have been lost if the cuts were implemented.

    Graham Smith, chairman of the Thames Valley Federation - the body which represents rank-and-file police officers - said he thought the recent Paris terror attacks had "played a part" in Mr Osborne's decision.

    He added: "The Government has taken the right approach to ensure the police have the resources to protect the budget.

    "In the medium term it's better news, but we will have to wait to see what our funding allocation will be."

PENSIONS

  • The basic state pension will rise by £3.35 a week, up to £119.30.
  • It's biggest rise in 15 years and Mr Osborne claimed this would make individual pensioners £1,125 a year better off.
  • A new 'flat-rate' pension to be introduced next April will be set at £155.65 a week.

Ellen Warman, 78, from Marston, receives a reduced pension of £60 a week and her husband Leonard, 76, earns a small military pension alongside the basic rate.

Together the couple live on about £15,000 a year.

Mrs Warman said: "I think my pension went up by about £2 last year but it didn't make much difference. It's only a loaf of bread.

"The only way we are getting through is by sharing a house with my daughter and her husband. I don't know how other people are doing it."

HOUSING

  • Landlords snapping up Oxford property for buy-to-let and second homes have been hit in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement.
  • George Osborne said he was aiming “to address the concern that more and more homes are being bought as buy-to-lets or second homes”.

It means:

  • From next year, the house buying tax known as ‘stamp duty’ will be three per cent higher on properties to be used as buy-to-lets and second homes.
  • Someone buying a £350,000 flat as an investment will pay £7,500 in stamp duty now but under the new regime, that tax bill would rise to £17,500.

Mark Charter, of estate agents Carter Jonas, said: "It could reduce the number of buy to let properties available to rent.”

COUNCILS AND COUNCIL TAX

  • Taxpayers in Oxfordshire could be asked to pay about £50 extra year under changes announced today.

Chancellor George Osborne confirmed the Government would allow local authorities to increase council tax by an extra two per cent to help fund adult social care. 

Announcing that councils would get "a big package of new powers, but also new responsibilities", Mr Osborne also said: 

  • Councils could increase council tax by 2% to fund social care, on top of the 1.99% they may already increase it by without a referendum.
  • Councils will be able to set their own business rates and keep all of the proceeds. 
  • Grant funding given to councils will be completely phased out by the end of this Parliament.
  • Councils will be able to keep 100% of the cash they make from selling assets like property (excluding Right to Buy homes) to spend on 'reform projects'. 

The changes were cautiously welcomed by county council leader Ian Hudspeth, who this afternoon said: “We welcome the Chancellor’s acknowledgement that people are living longer and costs pressures in adult social care are going up for councils.

“Oxfordshire is a county that is in need of infrastructure improvement – especially our roads. We need to improve the transport situation now and keep pace with development in future times.

“We therefore welcome the opportunity to attract new national infrastructure funding to the county.

“Our officers will now study the detail of the Chancellor’s announcements as they relate to local government. This is an emerging picture.”

EDUCATION

Schools in Oxfordshire are set to get more money after George Osborne announced a new funding formula.

  • The current "arbitrary and unfair" system which sees some schools get £2,000 more than others would end and be replaced with a new national system from 2017.
  • Sixth-form colleges will have the chance to become academies free of local authority control.
  • School budgets would be protected with a £10bn increase for education.

Schools in the county currently get an average grant of £4,300 for each pupil, compared to £6,300 in the ten best funded areas of England. The most poorly funded areas get £4,200, just slightly less than Oxfordshire.

Oxford Spires Academy headteacher Sue Croft said: "It is so important because there is a real injustice going on for children in Oxfordshire because they are not getting their fair share.

“But 2017 is two years that children here still have to go through with less funding."