Public Finance bulletin: April 2012

<p>Today the Office for National Statistics and HM Treasury published <i>Public Sector Finances March 2012</i>. We now have provisional details of central government receipts, central government spending, public sector net investment, borrowing and debt for the whole of financial year 2011&#8722;12. </p><p><p> Rowena Crawford, a research economist at the IFS, said: "Today's figures show that the Government borrowed £126 billion last year, as was forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility last month; although within this both central government spending and revenues were slightly lower than forecast a month ago. Taking the longer view, borrowing in 2011&#8722;12 is estimated to have been only £4 billion higher than forecast a year ago in the March 2011 Budget. This would be considered a small forecasting error even in normal times and this is therefore particularly small given current levels of uncertainty. However within this central government current receipts in 2011&#8722;12 are estimated to have come in £16 billion lower than forecast a year ago, offset largely by central government current spending coming in £10 billion lower and public sector net investment £3 billion lower than forecast." </p><p><h4>Headline comparisons</h4></p><p><ul><li><b>Public sector net borrowing</b> totalled £126.0bn in 2011&#8722;12, as was forecast last month by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) in their Economic and Fiscal Outlook. This is £10.8bn lower than the £136.8bn borrowed in 2010&#8722;11. </p></li><p><li><b>Public sector net investment</b> was £28.6bn in 2011&#8722;12, slightly higher than the £27.8bn forecast by the OBR in March 2012. </p></li><p><li>The <b>current budget deficit</b> in 2011&#8722;12 was £97.3bn, which is £0.9bn lower than the £98.2bn forecast by the OBR in March 2012. </p></li><p><li>Underlying <b>public sector net debt</b> at the end of March 2012 stood at 66% of national income. Including the impact of the financial interventions raises headline public sector net debt to 140.8%.</p><p></p><p></li></ul></p></p> </p>