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Analysis

National
Debt

UK
Deficit

Current
Spending

Spending
Analysis

UK
Taxes

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Total UK Government Spending

Headline central, local, and total UK public spending.

	Amounts in £ billion	March 2020	March 2021
	Central	694.7	724.8
	Local Authority	179.8	183.3
	Total UK Spending	874.4	908.1
Spending: budgeted guesstimated

Total Spending Pie Chart for FY 2021

We have central government spending data going back to 1692. Local government spending goes back to 1868.

	Spending Functions	March 2021
	Pensions	£167.6 billion
	Health Care	£177.7 billion
	Education	£94.3 billion
	Defence	£53.3 billion
	Welfare	£154.9 billion
	Protection	£37.5 billion
	Transportation	£41.5 billion
	Gen. Government	£19.2 billion
	Other Spending	£117.4 billion
	Interest	£45.3 billion
	Total	£908.1 billion
Spending: guesstimated

Spending data is updated every July from HM Treasury’s PESA report.

UK Public Spending

UK Public Spending Analysis

UK public spending includes both central government and local authority spending.

Last year, FY 2020, total public spending was £874.4 billion.

This year, FY 2021, total public spending is budgeted at £908.1 billion.

UK Deficits

UK Deficit Analysis

The “current budget deficit” is the difference between current spending and the sum of current receipts and depreciation.

Last year, FY 2020, the deficit was £-0.9 billion.

This year, FY 2021, the deficit is budgeted at £-4.9 billion.

UK Public Debt

UK Debt Analysis

The UK National Debt is the “public sector net debt” published by ONS.

Last year, FY 2020, the national debt was £1.7989 trillion.

This year, FY 2021, the national debt is budgeted at £1.8183 trillion.

UK Defence Spending

UK Defence Analysis

UK defence spending here includes defence, foreign affairs, and foreign aid.

Last year, FY 2020, total defence spending was £51.3 billion.

This year, FY 2021, total defence spending is budgeted at £53.3 billion.

UK Education Spending

UK Education Analysis

Last year, FY 2020, total education spending was £92.4 billion.

This year, FY 2021, total education spending is budgeted at £94.3 billion.

Top Spending Requests:

Find NATIONAL DEBT today and history.

See DEFENCE SPENDING.

Check OVERALL EXPENDITURE.

Check SPENDING breakdown, details and history.

Get WELFARE stats, HEALTH CARE stats, and EDUCATION stats.

DOWNLOAD spending or national debt.

Get BUDGET details and est. vs. actual.

See PIE CHARTS of total spending, central spending.

See CHART GALLERY of spending.

See COUNTRY SPENDING for England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland.

See REGIONAL SPENDING for London etc.

See BAR CHARTS of spending, debt.

See PIE CHARTS here.

Make your own CUSTOM CHART.

Spending Data Sources

Expenditure data since 1983 comes from HM Treasury’s Public Expenditure Statistical Analysis reports.

Detailed table of spending data sources here.

Gross Domestic Product data comes from measuringworth.com.

Central government spending data begins in 1692.

Local authority spending data begins in 1868.

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Data Sources for 2021:

GDP: OBR EFO supp. economy tables
Revenue: OBR March 2018 Economic and fiscal outlook – charts and tables: fiscal
Debt: OBR Public Finances Databank

> revenue data sources for other years

PESA 2020 Update

On July 17, 2020, HM Treasury published its Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses (PESA) for 2020. ukpublicspending.co.uk uses the PESA tables of public spending at the "sub-function" level as its major data source for UK public spending.

ukpublicspending.co.uk has now updated its spending tables using data from PESA 2020. The update includes outturn spending data for 2019-20, and plans data for 2020-21. ukpublicspending.co.uk uses PESA's Table 6.4 for Central Government expenditure, Table 7.4 for Local Authority expenditure, and Table 8.3 for Public Corporation capital expenditure.

Since HM Treasury does not provide plans estimates for future Local Authority spending, ukpublicspending.co.uk provides "guesstimates" instead. This is done by extending the percentage increase in spending between 2018-19 and 2019-20 for each sub-function for the plans year. It is assumed that local authority spending reductions will not carry through to plans years.

Country and Region spending has been updated up to 2018-19. These are obtained from Chapters 9 and 10 in the PESA document.