Public sector finances, UK: April 2022

Other commentary from the latest public sector finances data can be found on the following pages:

• Recent and upcoming changes to public sector finance statistics: April 2022
• Public sector finances borrowing by sub-sector dataset
• UK government debt and deficit: December 2021

• Public sector net borrowing excluding public sector banks (PSNB ex) was £18.6 billion in April 2022, the fourth-highest April borrowing since monthly records began in 1993; this was £5.6 billion less than in April 2021, but still £7.9 billion more than in April 2019, pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

• Central government receipts were £70.2 billion in April 2022, £9.9 billion more than in April 2021, of which tax receipts were £50.2 billion, an increase of £5.5 billion.

• Central government current (or day-to-day) expenditure was £76.0 billion in April 2022, £6.7 billion less than in April 2021, with the additional £3.0 billion cost of the Council Tax rebate payments being offset by reductions in other areas of expenditure, including subsidies and transfers to local government.

• PSNB ex was £144.6 billion in the financial year ending (FYE) March 2022, revised down by £7.2 billion from last month’s first provisional estimate, but remaining the third-highest financial year (FY) borrowing since records began in FYE March 1947.

• PSNB ex in FYE March 2022, is now estimated to have been £16.8 billion more than the £127.8 billion expected by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) in its March 2022 Economic and fiscal outlook.

• Expressed as a ratio of gross domestic product (GDP), PSNB ex in FYE March 2022 was 6.1%, revised down by 0.3 percentage points from last month’s first provisional estimate, reflecting both revisions to borrowing and GDP.

• Central government net cash requirement (excluding UK Asset Resolution Ltd and Network Rail) was £2.4 billion in April 2022, £28.1 billion less than in April 2021.

• Public sector net debt excluding public sector banks (PSND ex) was £2,347.7 billion at the end of April 2022, or around 95.7% of GDP, an increase of £179.1 billion or 0.9 percentage points of GDP compared with April 2021.

• Public sector net debt excluding public sector banks and the Bank of England (PSND ex BoE) was £2,027.0 billion at the end of April 2022, or around 82.6% of GDP, an increase of £95.5 billion or a reduction of 1.9 percentage points of GDP compared with April 2021.

In April 2022, initial estimates show that the public sector spent more than it received in taxes and other income. This required it to borrow £18.6 billion, £0.5 billion less than the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) expectation.

Central government receipts

Central government receipts in April 2022 were estimated to have been £70.2 billion, a £9.9 billion increase compared with April 2021. Of these receipts, tax revenue increased by £5.5 billion to £50.2 billion.

In the most recent months, tax receipts recorded on an accrued basis are subject to some uncertainty. This is because many taxes such as value added tax (VAT), Corporation Tax and Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Income Tax contain some forecast cash receipts data and are liable to revision when actual cash receipts data are received.

This month we have updated the forecasts underlying our current tax estimates. This is to reflect the expectations published in the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) Economic and fiscal outlook – March 2022 and the subsequent monthly profiles published on 12 May 2022.

New taxes and social contributions effective from April 2022

From April 2022, several new social contributions and taxes came into effect. These additional central government receipts have been recorded in the public sector finances for the first time this month, they include:

• a temporary increase in National Insurance Contributions (NICs) in the financial year ending (FYE) March 2023 to be replaced by the Health and Social Care Levy (HSCL) from April 2023 – the additional revenue resulting from the increase in NICs is not separately identifiable in our data; however, the OBR expects HSCL receipts to be £18.4 billion in the FYE March 2024
• the Plastic Packaging Tax (PPT) has been classified as a tax on products – the OBR expects PPT receipts to be £0.2 billion in the FYE March 2023
• the Residential Property Developer Tax (RPDT) has been provisionally recorded as a tax on income pending formal classification – the OBR expects RPDT receipts to be £0.2 billion in the FYE March 2023
• the Economic Crime (Anti-Money Laundering) Levy (ECL) has been provisionally recorded as a tax on production pending formal classification – the OBR expects ECL receipts to be less than £0.1 billion in the FYE March 2023

An additional tax, the Public Interest Business Protection Tax (PDF, 170KB) (BPT), has been classified as a tax on income. Effective since January 2022, this measure is intended as a deterrent and is not expected to affect the public sector finances. BPT will remain active until January 2023 but may be extended.

Compulsory social contributions

In April 2022, compulsory social contributions (largely National Insurance Contributions) were £13.4 billion on an accrual basis, a £1.4 billion increase compared with April 2021.

National Insurance Contributions in April 2022 on an accruals basis are based on OBR forecasts for May 2022’s cash receipts. They include a provision for the rate changes introduced in April 2022. Conversely, April 2022 cash receipts are based on March 2022 liabilities and are therefore not subject to the rate changes.

Interest and dividends receipts

In April 2022, there was a £3.2 billion dividend transfer from the Bank of England Asset Purchase Facility Fund (APF) to HM Treasury. This brings the total transfer to central government under the APF scheme to £122.8 billion since the mechanism began in January 2013.

As with other such transfers, central government net borrowing is reduced by the value of transfer receipt, while the net borrowing of the Bank of England is increased by an equal and offsetting amount. There is no impact at the public sector level.

All cash transferred from the APF to HM Treasury is fully reflected in central government net cash requirement and net debt.

The treatment of the APF in our fiscal aggregates is discussed in our Recent and upcoming changes to public sector finance statistics: November 2021 article.

Central government expenditure

Central government bodies spent £76.0 billion on current (or day-to-day) expenditure in April 2022, £6.7 billion less than in April 2021.

Interest payments on debt by central government

The recent high levels of debt interest payments are largely a result of higher inflation, as the interest paid on index-linked gilts rises with increases in the Retail Prices Index (RPI).

In the April 2022, debt interest was £4.4 billion, of which the RPI uplift on index-linked gilts contributed £3.9 billion over and above the accrued coupon payments and other components of debt interest.

While any RPI uplift will impact on accrued expenditure (as used in the calculation of borrowing) it will not be wholly and immediately reflected in the central government net cash requirement. These movements are reflected in the government’s liabilities, which will be realised as the existing stock of index-linked gilts is redeemed.

Support package for energy bills including Council Tax rebate schemes

On 3 February 2022, following the Office of Gas and Electricity Market’s (Ofgem’s) announcement of a rise in the energy price cap, the UK government responded with a package of support for households, published 3 February 2022.

This month we have recorded the Council Tax rebate in England as a payable tax credit from central government to households. This is recorded within other miscellaneous current transfers, and reported as Other Expenditure in Table 3. This additional expenditure has increased central government and subsequently public sector net borrowing by £3.0 billion in April 2022.

The cost of equivalent schemes in the devolved administrations – the Cost of Living Award in Scotland and the Cost of Living Payment in Wales – are also treated as payable tax credits, and are not separately identifiable in our data.

Details of the formal classification decision on the recording of the Council Tax rebate scheme for England were presented in our Public sector classification guide and forward work plan, published on 28 February 2022. The classification decisions for the payments for Wales and Scotland were published on 31 March 2022.

Bulb Energy Ltd

On 24 November 2021, the energy provider Bulb Energy Ltd was placed in a Special Administration Regime (SAR) by the UK government to ensure continued provision of essential services to its customers.

Following an official review, on 29 April 2022, we announced the Classification of Bulb Energy Limited to the public non-financial corporations subsector within the public sector, with effect from 24 November 2021.

Until the work has been completed to fully implement this classification decision, payments made under the SAR continue to be provisionally treated as central government expenditure under “other capital transfers”, a component of net investment, as they happen.

The public sector borrowed £144.6 billion in the financial year ending (FYE) March 2022. This was £16.8 billion more than the £127.8 billion forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) in its Economic and fiscal outlook – March 2022. However, this was less than half of that borrowed in the FYE March 2021.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has had a substantial impact on the economy as well as public sector borrowing. Expressed as a ratio of UK gross domestic product (GDP), borrowing in the FYE March 2021 was 14.8%, the highest for 75 years. Provisional estimates indicate that this ratio has fallen by 8.7 percentage points over the 12 months to March 2022, to 6.1%.

Public sector current budget deficit

The public sector current budget deficit is the gap between current expenditure and current receipts on an accrued basis, having taken account of depreciation. Current budget deficit can be thought of as borrowing to fund day-to-day spending, as it excludes the capital expenditure (or net investment) present in the wider net borrowing measure.

Central government forms the largest part of the public sector. The relationship between its receipts and expenditure are the key determinant of public sector current budget deficit and borrowing.

Central government receipts

Central government receipts in FYE March 2022 were £836.9 billion, £111.9 billion more than a year earlier. Of these, tax receipts were £624.9 billion, an increase of £99.0 billion compared with the FYE March 2021.

Central government expenditure

Central government current (or day-to-day) expenditure increased considerably over the coronavirus pandemic. While it still remains high at £895.7 billion in the FYE March 2022, it was £48.0 billion less than a year earlier.

Notably, there was a reduction of £67.7 billion (or around 57%) in subsidies, mainly because of the closure of the job support (furlough) schemes. However, this saving was partially offset by a £30.5 billion (or around 77%) increase in debt interest payments. This was largely a result of the interest being paid on index-linked gilts rising with inflation.

The central government net cash requirement (CGNCR), excluding UK Asset Resolution Ltd and Network Rail, is the amount of cash needed immediately for the UK government to meet its obligations. To obtain cash, the UK government sells financial instruments, gilts or Treasury Bills.

The amount of cash required will be affected by changes in the timing of payments to and from central government, but does not depend on forecast tax receipts in the same way as our accrued (or national accounts based) measures of borrowing.

The CGNCR consequently contains the timeliest information and is less susceptible to revision than other statistics in this release.

However, as for any cash measure, the CGNCR does not reflect the overall amount for which the government is liable or the point at which any liability is incurred – it only reflects when cash is received and spent.

Public sector net debt excluding public sector banks (PSND ex) was £2,347.7 billion at the end of April 2022, an increase of £179.1 billion compared with April last year.

The extra funding required by government over the course of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, combined with reduced cash receipts and a fall in gross domestic product (GDP), have all helped to push public sector net debt at the end of April 2022 to 95.7% of GDP.

Debt is largely made up of gilts (or bonds) issued to investors by central government. Of the £2,018.3 billion gilts in circulation at the end of April 2022:

• £1,508.9 billion are conventional gilts that pay a fixed interest rate
• £509.5 billion are index-linked gilts that pay an interest rate pegged to the Retail Prices Index (RPI) and are recorded at their redemption value

These gilts are auctioned by the Debt Management Office (DMO) in accordance with its financing remit, on behalf of central government.

The Bank of England’s contribution to debt

The Bank of England's (BoE) contribution to public sector net debt is largely a result of its quantitative easing activities. These include both the gilt purchasing activities and corporate bond holdings of the Asset Purchase Facility Fund (APF) and loans made under Term Funding Schemes (TFS).

In February 2022, the BoE announced that it will no longer be replenishing the gilt stock of the APF. As a result of a gilt redemption, in March 2022, the APF’s gilt holdings (at face value) reduced by £25.1 billion, to a redemption value of £734.9 billion.

It is important to understand that this £734.9 billion (conventional) gilt holding, is not recorded directly as a component of public sector net debt. Instead, we record the £112.1 billion difference between the £847.0 billion of reserves created to purchase gilts (or market value of the gilts) and the £734.9 billion face (or redemption) value of the gilts purchased.

Table PSA9A in our Public sector finances tables 1 to 10: Appendix A, presents the impact of both APF and TFS as a part of BoE’s contribution to public sector net debt.

Our public sector net debt excluding the public sector banks and the Bank of England (PSND ex BoE) measure removes the debt impact of these schemes along with the other transactions relating to the normal operations of the BoE. Currently standing at £2,027.0 billion at the end of April 2022 (or around 82.6% of GDP), PSND ex BoE is £320.7 billion (or 13.1 percentage points of GDP) less than PSND ex.

Public sector net financial liabilities

Public sector net financial liabilities excluding public sector banks (PSNFL ex) provides a more comprehensive measure of the public sector balance sheet. It captures a wider range of financial assets and liabilities than recorded in PSND ex, such as the assets held under the TFS, which fall outside the boundary of PSND ex.

PSNFL ex was £2,039.5 billion at the end of April 2022 (or around 83.1% of GDP), £308.2 billion (or 12.6 percentage points of GDP) less than PSND ex.

Table PSNFL 3, published as a part of our Public sector finances tables 1 to 10: Appendix A, provides a reconciliation between the latest measures of PSND ex and PSNFL ex.

The data for the latest months of every release contain a degree of forecasts. Subsequently, these are replaced by improved forecasts, as further data are made available and finally by outturn data.

Most central government departments usually publish their audited resource accounts by August of each year, enabling us to reflect them in our September public sector finances release. Because of the exceptional demands of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, a number of central government departments delayed the publication of their audited accounts for the financial year ending (FYE) 2021 (April 2020 to March 2021).

These audited accounts have now been published and we plan to reflect these updates in our May release, to be published on 23 June 2022.

Revisions to net borrowing in the financial year ending (FYE) March 2022

Since our last public sector finances bulletin (26 April 2022), we have reduced our estimate of borrowing in the FYE March 2022 by £7.2 billion.

Increases to our previous estimates of central government tax and national insurance contributions of £5.0 billion and £1.8 billion, respectively, are largely the result of higher than anticipated April 2022 cash receipts accruing back to earlier months.

An increase to our previous estimate of current transfers from central to local government has increased central government borrowing by £1.3 billion. However, this has reduced local government borrowing by an equal and offsetting amount.

Improvements to our previously estimated Housing Revenue Account (HRA) data have resulted in an increase of £1.0 billion to our previous estimate of public corporations’ gross operating surplus. This has reduced our estimate of public sector borrowing in the FYE March 2022 by an additional £1.0 billion.

Tables 11 and 12 detail the revisions to central government receipts and expenditure in the FYE March 2022 since our last publication.

Revisions to public sector net debt excluding public sector banks

This month we have increased our previous estimate of the level of public sector net debt excluding public sector banks at the end of March 2022 by £0.1 billion from that published on 26 April 2022. This was largely the result of small updates to our previous estimates of liquid assets held by local government and non-financial public corporations.

Revisions to public sector net debt excluding public sector banks expressed as a ratio of GDP

This month we have replaced our previous Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) based provisional GDP estimate with our GDP first quarterly estimate, UK: January to March 2022 (published 12 May 2022). As a result, our previously published value of public sector net debt at the end of March 2022 expressed as a ratio of GDP, has reduced by around 0.2 percentage points.

Revisions to public sector net debt including public sector banks

This month we have increased our previous estimate of the public sector banks’ contribution to public sector net debt at the end of March 2022 by £7.2 billion. These data are updated twice annually with balance sheet data supplied by the Bank of England. The latest available balance sheet data extend to December 2021, and we have used this to inform our estimates for the most recent months.

Public sector

In the UK, the public sector consists of six sub-sectors: central government, local government, public non-financial corporations, public sector pensions, the Bank of England (BoE) and public financial corporations (or public sector banks).

Public sector banks

Unless otherwise stated, the figures quoted in this bulletin exclude public sector banks, currently only the NatWest Group (formerly the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Group).

Public sector current budget deficit

Public sector current budget deficit is the gap between current expenditure and current receipts on an accrued basis, having taken account of depreciation.

The current budget is in surplus when receipts are greater than expenditure.

Public sector current expenditure

Current expenditure measures reflect the cost of the public sector’s day-to-day activities. For example, central government’s provision of services and grants, payment of social benefits and the payment of the interest on its outstanding debt.

Public sector debt interest to revenue ratio

The debt interest to revenue ratio (DIR) represents the proportion of net interest paid (gross interest paid less interest received) by the public sector (excluding public sector banks), compared with the non-interest receipts it receives in a given period.

Public sector net borrowing

Public sector net borrowing excluding public sector banks (PSNB ex) measures the gap between revenue raised (current receipts) and total spending (current expenditure plus net investment (capital spending less capital receipts)). PSNB is often referred to by commentators as “the deficit”.

Public sector net cash requirement

The public sector net cash requirement (PSNCR) represents the cash needed to be raised from the financial markets over a period of time to finance its activities.

The amount of cash required will be affected by changes in the timing of payments to and from the public sector rather than when these liabilities were incurred. However, it does not depend on forecast tax receipts in the same way as our accrued (or national accounts) based measures of borrowing.

PSNCR may be similar to borrowing for the same period and close, but not identical, to the changes in the level of net debt between two points in time.

Public sector net debt

Public sector net debt excluding public sector banks (PSND ex) represents the amount of money the public sector owes to private sector organisations (including overseas institutions) and is often referred to by commentators as “the national debt”.

Public sector net investment

Public sector net investment is the sum of all capital spending, mainly net acquisitions of capital assets and capital grants, less the depreciation of the stock of capital assets.

Public sector net financial liabilities

Public sector net financial liabilities excluding public sector banks (PSNFL ex) is a comprehensive measure of the public sector balance sheet, capturing a wider range of financial assets and liabilities than recorded in PSND ex.

Total managed expenditure

Total managed expenditure (TME) covers all current and capital spending carried out by the public sector, including depreciation. This is equal to public sector current expenditure, plus public sector net investment, plus deprecation.

Comparing our data with official forecasts

The independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) is responsible for the production of official forecasts for the government. These forecasts are usually produced twice a year, in spring and autumn.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) loan guarantee schemes

In their Economic and fiscal outlook – March 2022, OBR estimated that a reduction on calls on the government’s coronavirus (COVID-19) loan guarantee schemes would reduce net borrowing by £4.4 billion in the financial year ending (FYE) March 2022. We will include any impact arising from a change in expectations when sufficiently reliable data become available.

Student loans

On 24 February 2022, the UK government announced new changes to the student finance system in England. These changes are explained in our Recent and upcoming changes to public sector finance statistics: February 2022 article but are not yet reflected in the public sector finance statistics. OBR have estimated the impact of these changes on borrowing in their Economic and fiscal outlook – March 2022.

To supplement this release we publish an accompanying public sector methodological guide and public sector finances Quality and Methodology Information outlining the strengths, limitations, and appropriate uses of the public sector finance dataset.

Local government and public corporations

Both local government and public corporations’ data in the most recent periods are initial estimates, largely based on the Budget Responsibility (OBR) Economic and fiscal outlook (EFO) – March 2022, with adjustments being applied as needed.

In recent years, planned local government expenditure initially reported in local authority budgets has been systematically higher than the final outturn expenditure reported in the audited accounts. We therefore include adjustments, usually to reduce the amounts reported at the budget stage.

For financial year ending (FYE) 2021 (April 2020 to March 2021), we have applied a £0.5 billion downward adjustment to current expenditure on benefits, to reflect the most recently available data for housing benefits.

For FYE 2022 we include:

• a £2.5 billion downward adjustment to England’s capital expenditure
• a £0.5 billion downward adjustment to Scotland’s capital expenditure
• a £0.4 billion downward adjustment to Wales’s capital expenditure
• a £3.5 billion upward adjustment to England’s current expenditure on goods and services

We apply a further £2.1 billion downward adjustment to budget forecast current expenditure on benefits in FYE 2022, to reflect the most recently available data for housing benefits.

Public corporations’ data for both the FYE March 2021 and FYE March 2022 are estimates largely based on OBR forecasts and as such should be treated as provisional.