The government has published the Whole of Government Accounts for the year to 31 March 2014 this morning.
As they say of these:
So, the first question: why delay publication until the last day possible so that the PAC has no chance to challenge this government during this parliament? I smell a rat. Candidly, the delay is wholly unacceptable whatever the reason. Six months is the longest time it should take to produce this data.
Having said so, let's then look at the picture the accounts show. This is a summary:
In four years this government managed to increase the UK state's net liabilities by £623.9 billion.
Let's put that in context: From time immemorial until 2010 the state had accumulated a deficit of £1,227.9. And it has grown by 51% by 31 March 2014.
If the trend continues the deficit by this measure will be £156 billion this year. If that is the case the deficit at 31 March 2015 will be £2 trillion and 39% of this will have been accumulated under the Coalition.
That's some record of competence.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
They have been published three months quicker than last year’s accounts.
1.5 The accounts for 2013-14 continue the trend of delivering significant improvements in the quality of the WGA. They have been published 12 months after the financial year end, three months ahead of the 2012-13 accounts. Our ultimate target is to produce the WGA within 9 months of the year end to ensure the data is relevant and useful for decision makers.
So? Is going from dire to bad good enough?
Well, I have no idea how long it takes to compile the accounts from 5,500 government agencies.
Just pointing out though that if the government were deliberately trying to avoid publishing this until the last possible minute to avoid scrutiny then they could easily have delayed until after the general election and still have been quicker than previous years.
Of the 1851bn how much is the money used to bail out banks? And how much of the money actually given to banks has been repaid?
I have not got that far yet
My point is that most people take out a 30 year mortgage on their home – after 5 years (period since 2010 bank bail out) you would expect that most people would have repaid one sixth of their mortgage. If the bank bail was as the NAO states was 850bn then you would have expected that they might have repaid some 140bn by this time. If this was the case surely there would be no need at all for any cuts to public expenditure. Or is that just too simple a solution? Why aren’t the banks essentially paying off the deficit?
Capital is never repaid in a straight line on loans
It is always tail end weighted
Shocking.
is this debt (total owed) or deficit (gap between spending and tax receipts)? Looks like debt to me.
Indeed
Easy error – but not in a million years have I really thought the deficit that big
And this is actual net liabilities
Aren’t you confusing debt with deficit? Debt has gone up in the last 5 years (in fact every year since 2001. However, the deficit has reduced. Debt won’t reduce till we eliminate the deficit which won’t be any time soon whoever is in charge.
Am I right in thinking ‘Net expenditure’ is the ‘budget deficit’? And ‘Net liabilities’ is government debt? And does ‘Net liabilities’ include PFI liabilities? As I recall, the Tories claimed they’d eliminate the ‘structural deficit’ by 2015. I also recall Osborne had around £12 billion drop into his lap in his first few months due to 2009/10 actuals being £12bn lower than forecast.
I think you’re right
Near enough
The definitions are a little different, but not much