Quarterly sector accounts, UK: October to December 2023

• The household saving ratio is estimated to have increased to 10.2% in Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2023, from 10.1% in the previous quarter.

• The increase in the saving ratio was driven by a rise in net social benefits other than social transfers in kind of £3.9 billion together with increased employer's social contributions of £2.0 billion and wages and salaries of £1.4 billion. 

• Real households' disposable income (RHDI) is estimated to have grown by 0.7% following broadly flat growth in Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2023.

• Within RHDI, nominal gross disposable income increased by 1.1%.

• The UK's borrowing position with the rest of the world as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have increased to 3.3% in Quarter 4 from 2.9% in Quarter 3.

• Financial corporations increased their net lending position to 2.0% of GDP from 1.4% of GDP in the previous quarter; this was driven by a rise in net property income of £5.7 billion, together with a fall in gross capital formation of £3.2 billion and the adjustment for pensions entitlements of £2.7 billion.

• Non-financial corporations increased their net borrowing to 2.7% of GDP, from 1.5% of GDP in Quarter 3 2023; this was driven by falls in gross operating surplus of £4.2 billion and net property income of £3.8 billion.

• Households decreased their net lending to 2.9% of GDP in Quarter 4 2023 compared with 3.1% of GDP the previous quarter; this was driven by falls in net capital transfers of £2.8 billion, the adjustment for pension entitlements of £2.7 billion, and net property income of £2.4 billion.

• General government saw a decrease in their net borrowing position to 4.6% of GDP in Quarter 4 2023 from 4.8% as a percentage of GDP in Quarter 3.

Interactive glossary

Gross disposable household income and real household disposable income

Gross disposable household income (GDHI) is the estimate of the total amount of income that households have available to either spend, save or invest including income received from wages (and the self-employed), social benefits, pensions and net property income (that is, earnings from interest on savings and dividends from shares) less taxes on income and wealth.

Adjusting GDHI to remove the effects of inflation gives real household disposable income (RHDI). This is a measure of the real purchasing power of households' income, in terms of the physical quantity of goods and services they would be able to purchase if prices remained constant over time.

The household saving ratio

The saving ratio estimates the amount of money households have available to save as a percentage of their gross disposable income plus pension accumulations.

Net lending or borrowing

The net lending of a sector represents the surplus resources that a sector makes available to other sectors. Net borrowing represents their financing of a deficit from other sectors.

Net lending means a sector has money left over after its spending and investment in a given period, whereas net borrowing means it has spent and invested more than it received and has a need for financing, which may be covered by borrowing, issuing shares or bonds, or by drawing on reserves.

Revisions within this release

This bulletin includes new data for the latest available quarter, Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2023, and revisions to data from Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2023. This bulletin follows the National Accounts Revisions Policy.

Understanding the sector and financial accounts

This release presents analysis on UK aggregate data for the main economic indicators and summary estimates from the institutional sectors of the UK economy that are presented in the UK Economic Accounts (UKEA) dataset:

• public corporations

• private non-financial corporations

• financial corporations

• households

• non-profit institutions serving households (NPISH)

• central government

• local government

• rest of the world

This release uses data from the UKEA and provides detailed estimates of national product, income and expenditure, UK sector, non-financial and financial accounts, and UK Balance of Payments. These accounts are the underlying data that produce a single estimate of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) using income, production and expenditure data.

Quality and Methodology Information report

Our Quarterly sector accounts Quality and Methodology Information (QMI) report contains important information on:

• the strengths and limitations of the data and how they compare with related data

• uses and users of the data

• how the output was created

• the quality of the output, including the accuracy of the data

System of National Accounts consultation

As part of an update to the System of National Accounts, the United Nations (UN) are in the process of consulting on several areas being considered for improvement. Previous and live consultations can be found on the UN Statistics Division website. If you would like to discuss any of these consultations with the Office for National Statistics (ONS), please contact us at sna.consultations@ons.gov.uk. Bodies outside the UK national statistical system are also free to respond to the consultations themselves.

Economic statistics governance after EU exit

Following the UK's exit from the EU, new governance arrangements are being put in place that will support the adoption and implementation of high-quality standards for UK economic statistics. These governance arrangements will promote international comparability and add to the credibility and independence of the UK's statistical system.

At the centre of this new governance framework will be the new National Statistician's Committee for Advice on Standards for Economic Statistics (NSCASE). NSCASE will support the UK by ensuring its processes for influencing and adopting international statistical standards are world leading. The advice NSCASE provides to the National Statistician will span the full range of domains in economic statistics, including the national accounts, fiscal statistics, prices, trade and the balance of payments and labour market statistics.