Quarterly sector accounts, UK: July to September 2021

Detailed estimates of quarterly sector accounts that can be found in the UK Economic Accounts (UKEA).

Nid hwn yw'r datganiad diweddaraf. Gweld y datganiad diweddaraf

22 December 2021

Please note we have amended the wording of the “UK's net borrowing position with the rest of the world” headline to remove ambiguity. The point now reads: The UK's net borrowing position with the rest of the world increased to negative 4.3% as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) in Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2021 compared with negative 2.4% of GDP in Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2021.

This is an accredited National Statistic. Click for information about types of official statistics.

Cyswllt:
Email David Matthewson

Dyddiad y datganiad:
22 December 2021

Cyhoeddiad nesaf:
31 March 2022

1. Main points

  • The UK's net borrowing position with the rest of the world increased to negative 4.3% as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) in Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2021 compared with negative 2.4% of GDP in Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2021. 

  • The household saving ratio decreased to 8.6% in Quarter 3 2021 compared with 10.7% in Quarter 2 2021.

  • Household's net lending position in the non-financial account decreased to £13.5 billion (2.3% of GDP) in Quarter 3 2021 from £23.8 billion in Quarter 2 2021 (4.1% of GDP); the decreased lending was driven by a rise in household spending of 3.3% from the previous quarter.

  • Non-financial and financial corporations both decreased their net lending position to 0.6% as a percentage of GDP in Quarter 3 2021; within non-financial corporations, private non-financial corporations decreased their net property income by £4.7 billion, driven by a 17.3% increase in dividend payments made on the quarter; financial corporations' net lending decreased to £3.4 billion following lending of £4.4 billion in Quarter 2 2021, driven by an increase in the acquisition less disposal of valuables of £2.1 billion.

  • General government decreased their net borrowing position in the non-financial account to negative 7.5% of GDP in Quarter 3 2021 from negative 9.1% of GDP during Quarter 2 2021; within this, central government saw a fall in subsidies paid of £7.3 billion, partially offset by a rise in central government final consumption expenditure of £1.6 billion. 

  • In the financial account, the rest of the world sector switched from net borrowing to net lending in Quarter 3 2021, while financial corporations switched from net lending to net borrowing in the same quarter; households decreased their net lending and general government decreased their net borrowing position.

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2. Quarterly sector accounts data

Quarterly sector accounts
Dataset | Released 22 December 2021
Quarterly aggregate economic indicators and summary estimates for private non-financial corporations and households' sectors of the UK economy, and revisions.

UK Economic Accounts
Dataset | Released 22 December 2021
Quarterly estimates of national product, income and expenditure, sector accounts revisions and balance of payments.

UK Economic Accounts: main aggregates
Dataset | Released 22 December 2021
Quarterly national accounts aggregates, per capita data, including gross domestic product by income and expenditure, gross value added, gross fixed capital formation, change in inventories, gross operating surplus, and revisions.

UK Economic Accounts: total economy
Dataset | Released 22 December 2021
Distribution and use of income account and capital account, financial account and balance sheet quarterly data for the UK total economy.

UK Economic Accounts: flow of funds
Dataset | Released 22 December 2021
Quarterly flow of funds, financial account and balance sheet data for the UK economy by institutional sector.

UK Economic Accounts: institutional sector - general government
Dataset | Released 22 December 2021
Distribution and use of income account and capital account, financial account and balance sheet quarterly data for general government.

UK Economic Accounts: institutional sector - households and non-profit institutions serving households
Dataset | Released 22 December 2021
Distribution and use of income account and capital account, financial account and balance sheet quarterly data for households and non-profit institutions serving households. Includes the Experimental Statistics on the impact of removing "imputed" transactions from real household disposable income and the saving ratio to better represent the economic experience of UK households.

UK Economic Accounts: institutional sector - financial and non-financial corporations
Dataset | Released 22 December 2021
Distribution and use of income account and capital account, financial account and balance sheet quarterly data for non-financial corporations and sub-sectors.

UK Economic Accounts: institutional sector - rest of the world
Dataset | Released 22 December 2021
Distribution and use of income account and capital account, financial account and balance sheet quarterly data for the rest of the world.

UK Economic Accounts: balance of payments - current account
Dataset | Released 22 December 2021
Quarterly transactions in trade in goods and services, primary, secondary and investment income, transactions with EU and non-EU countries and capital account.

UK Economic Accounts: balance of payments - financial account
Dataset | Released 22 December 2021
Quarterly transactions associated with changes of ownership of the UK's foreign financial assets and liabilities, including direct, portfolio and other investment, sector analysis and government reserve assets.

UK Economic Accounts: balance of payments - international investment position
Dataset | Released 22 December 2021
Quarterly end-of-period balance sheet levels of UK external assets and liabilities, including direct, portfolio and other investment, sector analysis and government reserve assets.

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3. Glossary

Seasonal adjustment

All figures given in this bulletin are adjusted for seasonality, unless the financial accounts are under discussion or otherwise stated. Seasonal adjustment removes seasonal or calendar effects from data to enable more meaningful comparisons over time.

Current price

Current price series are expressed in terms of the prices during the time period being estimated. These describe the prices recorded at the time of production or consumption and include the effect of price inflation over time.

Chained volume measures

Chained volume series (also known as real terms) have had the effects of inflation removed.

Gross disposable household income (GDHI) and real household disposable income (RHDI)

GDHI is the estimate of the total amount of income that households have available to either spend, save or invest. This includes 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 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 households' 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 they make 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.

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4. Measuring the data

Revisions within this release

This bulletin includes new data for the latest available quarter, Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2021, and revisions to data from Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2020 to Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2021. 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

The Quarterly sector accounts Quality and Methodology Information report contains important information on:

  • the strengths and limitations of the data and how it compares 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. The consultation is also open to those outside the UK Statistical System. 

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.

Introduction of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) spreadsheets

In our March 2022 publication, the quarterly sector accounts data tables will be prepared in line with the Government Statistical Service (GSS) guidance on releasing statistics in spreadsheets.

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Manylion cyswllt ar gyfer y Bwletin ystadegol

David Matthewson
sector.accounts@ons.gov.uk
Ffôn: +44 1633 456366