ICAEW chart of the week: Sterling exchange rates 2023

My chart for ICAEW this week looks at how the pound appreciated in value against the euro, US dollar, yuan and yen respectively during 2023.

4 x step charts titled 'Sterling exchange rates 2023'


Euro

30 Dec 2022: €1.128 = £1.00
Change: +2%
29 Dec 2023: €1.154 = £1.00


US dollar

30 Dec 2022: $1.204 = £1.00
Change: +6%
29 Dec 2023: $1.275 = £1.00


Chinese yuan

30 Dec 2022: ¥8.31 = £1.00
Change: +9%
29 Dec 2023: ¥9.08 = £1.00


Japanese yen

30 Dec 2022: ¥159 = £1.00
Change: +13%
29 Dec 2023: ¥180 = £1.00


4 Jan 2024.
Chart by Martin Wheatcroft FCA. Design by Sunday.

Source: Bank of England, 'Daily spot exchange rates against sterling'.

My first chart of the week of 2024 for ICAEW looks back at 2023 and how sterling strengthened against the euro, US dollar, yuan and yen – the currencies of the four largest economies in the world – based on exchange rates reported by the Bank of England.

The smallest increase was against the principal currency of the European Union, our largest trading partner, with the sterling to euro exchange rate up by just over 2% from £1:00:€1.128 to £1.00:€1.154 between 30 December 2022 and 29 December 2023. 

This contrasted with a 6% rise in sterling against the US dollar during 2023 from £1.00:$1.204 at the end of 2022 to £1.00:$1.275 at the end of 2023, a 9% rise against the Chinese yuan renminbi from £1.00:¥8.31 to £1.00: ¥9.08. Sterling increased, and a 13% increase against the Japanese yen from £1.00:¥159 to £1.00:¥180.

Exchange rate movements can be attributed to multiple factors, including relative rates of inflation and economic growth, interest rates, trade and investment flows, and fiscal credibility among others – both actuals and sentiment about prospects for the future. In sterling’s case, expectations that interest rates in the UK are likely to stay higher for longer than in other major economies is a key contributor to the rise in sterling over 2023, although this is only part of the story.

While sterling has appreciated over the last year against these and many other currencies, the pound is still much lower in value than 10 years ago, being down 4% against the euro compared with £1.00:€1.200 at the end of 2013, down 23% against the US dollar from £1.00:$1.653, and down 9% against the Chinese yuan from £1.00:¥10.01. The exception is the Japanese yen, where the rise this year has more than offset falls over the previous decade to leave sterling 4% higher against the yen than the exchange rate £1.00:¥173 on 31 December 2013.

Time to book that holiday to China or Japan?

Setting a new direction for local authority accounts

The Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee has delivered a landmark report that will transform local authority financial statements, says ICAEW’s Alison Ring.

While the focus for many of us at the moment is on a rather depressing English roulette game of guessing which local authority will be the next to issue a section 114 ‘bankruptcy’ notice, you may be forgiven for having missed the landmark nature of the House of Commons Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee report ‘Financial Reporting and Audit in Local Authorities’. 

Admirably concise (for such reports) at 45 pages, the report has quite rightly attracted headlines for the elements focused on the local audit crisis in England – and the increasingly urgent actions that are needed to resolve it. We at ICAEW are equally frustrated at the slow pace of the response and continue to urge the government to prioritise getting local authority audits back on track as quickly as possible. 

So far, so expected. The Committee adds to the chorus of voices already calling for the government to address and reduce the backlog of audited accounts, as well as to take action in the longer term to prevent backlogs from happening again. The report highlights delays in putting the new system leader for local audit onto a statutory basis and calls for enabling legislation to be brought forward as soon as possible.

What makes this report so important is that it has not stopped there, instead going under the hood of the local authority financial reporting and audit system to come up with transformational recommendations on how local authority accounts can be improved to properly support democracy and accountability in a way that they aren’t doing now.

Fundamental weaknesses

The principal focus of the report is on addressing: “… fundamental weaknesses in the accounts themselves that are hampering the efforts of members of the public and other stakeholders to use them in holding local authorities to account”. 

The Committee highlights the impenetrability of local authority financial statements as being a core issue, commenting that stakeholders who might want to use the information in the accounts encounter significant challenges in finding and understanding the information they need. As a result, many stakeholders do not use the accounts at all. Local authority accounts and audit are therefore not adequately fulfilling their role in supporting local democracy and accountability.

The Committee also quotes Rob Whiteman, Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), who commented in his evidence to the inquiry that if people do not understand the accounts, they may also believe the accounts to be opaque and untrustworthy. My boss Iain Wright, Managing Director for Reputation and Influence at ICAEW, also gave evidence to the inquiry in which he stated that council taxpayers want to know how their money is being spent, and ultimately local authority accounts are the best way of being able to distil that.

Five purposes of accounts

One of the key issues identified by the Committee is a lack of clarity around the purpose of accounts, with the report quoting evidence from Alison Scott, Shared Director of Finance for Three Rivers District Council and Watford Borough Council, who stated: “At the moment, the statement of accounts tries to be all things to all people and, in doing that, gains lots of complexity. It almost loses its focus as to who it is supposed to be being produced for and who its focus is on.”

The Committee answers that by setting out five purposes that it believes accounts should fulfil to adequately support local democracy and accountability: 

  1. To be a credible public record.
  2. Provide accountability for spending. 
  3. Enable conclusions to be reached on value for money.
  4. Provide information to run local authorities.
  5. Alert stakeholders of actual and potential issues.

The Committee believes these purposes will ultimately focus local authority accounts on their role as vital tools for upholding local democracy and accountability. 

ICAEW concurs in the need for clarity around the purposes of the accounts and believes these proposals will provide much needed clarity to government, standard setters, preparers and regulators in how financial statements should be designed and presented. A new foundation that will be critical in helping users understand what is going on so that stakeholders can read and use the accounts to hold local authorities to account.

The Committee makes some specific recommendations to align local authority accounts with the five purposes, including introducing a standardised statement of service information and costs (as recommended by the Redmond Review); decoupling pension statements from the accounts; ensuring that auditors consider and conclude on the value for money achieved by local authorities; and encouraging more consistent use of auditors’ existing powers to sound early warnings. It also called for the government to work with CIPFA to make the Accounting Code freely available to all possible users.

A much more significant recommendation is the Committee’s call for the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to undertake an immediate review into existing legislation that places requirements on the contents and format of local authority accounts (including statutory overrides), with a view to ensuring they align with the five purposes as set out above. 

The report comments that not a single stakeholder, witness or piece of written evidence expressed to the inquiry that one of the purposes of the accounts was to provide a baseline for the council tax calculation. The Committee did not consider council tax setting to be one of the main purposes of the accounts, questioning whether this could be better done outside of the accounts as part of a separate process.

A landmark report

I believe this report marks a decisive turn in what local authority annual financial reports should look like and how they can be used much more effectively to hold local authorities to account, improve decision-making and governance, and ensure value for money provided by local and national taxpayers. 

We can only hope that it will be as effective as the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee’s report ‘Accounting for Democracy’ was to making central government accounts much more accessible to parliamentarians and other users.

If I have one (or is that two?) quibble(s) it is that the report does not sufficiently emphasise the role of councillors in holding local authorities to account and the role of finance teams in helping them to do so effectively.

Despite that small caveat, this is a landmark report that sets a new direction for local authority accounts and audit to support local democracy and accountability. By establishing clarity around the purpose of accounts the Committee has provided a foundation on which the whole system can be rebuilt.

Alison Ring is Director Public Sector and Taxation, ICAEW.

This article was written by Martin Wheatcroft (on behalf of ICAEW) together with Alison Ring, and was originally published in Room 151 and subsequently by ICAEW.

Gap between public sector income and spending reaches £116bn

Latest public sector finance numbers reveal a challenging fiscal backdrop for both government and opposition ahead of a general election.

The monthly public sector finances for November 2023 released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Thursday 21 December 2023 reported a provisional deficit for the month of £14bn and revised the year-to-date deficit up by £4bn, bringing the cumulative deficit for the first two-thirds of the financial year to £116bn, £24bn more than in the same eight-month period last year.

Alison Ring OBE FCA, ICAEW Director for Public Sector and Taxation, said: “These numbers confirm that the government’s financial difficulties are continuing to mount, with the shortfall between income and public spending reaching an unsustainable £116bn for the first two-thirds of the financial year, surpassing the £100bn milestone and providing a challenging fiscal backdrop for both the government and the opposition ahead of a general election.

“While the Prime Minister and the Chancellor continue to search for cost savings to free up capacity for further pre-election tax cuts, the opposition will be concerned about the fiscal legacy it would inherit if it were to take power. 

“The deteriorating state of the UK’s public services is a big concern for all politicians given that it implies a need for substantial tax rises after the general election, irrespective of who wins.”

Month of November 2023

The provisional shortfall in taxes and other receipts compared with total managed expenditure for the month of November 2023 was £14bn, made up of tax and other receipts of £86bn less total managed expenditure of £100bn, up 5% and 3% respectively compared with November 2022. 

This was the fourth highest November deficit on record since monthly records began in 1997, following monthly deficits of £15bn, £22bn and £15bn in November 2010, 2020, and 2022 respectively.

Public sector net debt as of 30 November 2023 was £2,671bn or 97.5% of GDP, up £30bn during the month and £132bn higher than at the start of the financial year.

Table titled 'Public sector finance trends: November 2023'

Eight months to Nov 2019, Nov 2020, Nov 2021, Nov 2022 and Nov 2023 respectively.

£bn except where stated.

Receipts:  530, 491, 574, 648, 682
Expenditure: (522), (661), (610), (635), (676)
Interest: (41), (30), (46), (83), (90)
Net investment: (22), (46), (31), (22), (32)
Subtotal line
Deficit: (55), (246), (113), (92), (116)
Other borrowing: 5, (67), (83), (4), (15)
Total line above
Debt movement: (50), (313), (196), (96), (131)
Total line below

Net debt: £1,827bn, £2,128bn, £2,348bn, £2,477bn, £2,671bn

Net debt / GDP: 83.4%, 99.1%, 98.5%, 95.7%, 97.5%.

Eight months to November 2023

The provisional shortfall in taxes and other receipts compared with total managed expenditure for the first two thirds of the financial year to November 2023 was £116bn, £24bn more than the £92bn deficit reported for the first eight months of 2022/23. This reflected a year-to-date shortfall between tax and other receipts of £682bn and total managed expenditure of £798bn, up 5% and 8% respectively compared with April to November 2022.

Inflation benefited tax receipts for the first eight months compared with the same period in the previous year, with income tax up 10% to £156bn and VAT up 8% to £134bn. Corporation tax receipts were up 10% to £62bn, partly reflecting the increase in the corporation tax rate from 19% to 25% from 1 April 2023, while national insurance receipts were down by 3% to £114bn because of the abolition of the short-lived health and social care levy last year. Stamp duty on properties was down by 27% to £9bn and the total for all other taxes was up just 3% to £132bn, much less than inflation, as economic activity slowed. Non-tax receipts were up 11% to £75bn, primarily driven by higher investment income.

Total managed expenditure of £798bn in the eight months to November 2023 can be analysed between current expenditure excluding interest of £676bn, up £41bn or 6% over the same period in the previous year, interest of £90bn, up £7bn or 8%, and net investment of £32bn, up £10bn or 45%.

The increase of £41bn in current expenditure excluding interest was driven by a £21bn increase in pension and other welfare benefits (including cost-of-living payments), £14bn in higher central government pay and £7bn in additional central government procurement spending, less £1bn in net other changes.

The rise in interest costs for the eight months of £7bn to £90bn comprises a £20bn or 43% increase to £67bn for interest not linked to inflation as the Bank of England base rate rose, partially offset by an £13bn or 37% fall to £23bn for interest accrued on index-linked debt from lower inflation than last year.

The £10bn increase in net investment spending to £32bn in the first eight months of the current year reflects high construction cost inflation amongst other factors that saw a £13bn or 21% increase in gross investment to £75bn, less a £3bn or 8% increase in depreciation to £43bn. 

The cumulative deficit of £116bn for the first two-thirds of the financial year is £8bn below the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR)’s official forecast of £124bn for the full financial year as compiled in November 2023 for the Autumn Statement. The deficit for the last third of the financial year is normally much smaller than for the first two-thirds because of self assessment tax returns arriving in January that boost tax receipts.

Balance sheet metrics

Public sector net debt was £2,671bn at the end of November 2023, equivalent to 97.5% of GDP.

The debt movement since the start of the financial year was £131bn, comprising borrowing to fund the deficit for the eight months of £116bn plus £15bn in net cash outflows to fund lending to students, businesses and others net of loan repayments and working capital movements.

Public sector net debt is £856bn more than the £1,815bn reported for 31 March 2020 at the start of the pandemic and £2,133bn more than the £538bn number as of 31 March 2007 before the financial crisis, reflecting the huge sums borrowed over the last couple of decades.

Public sector net worth, the new balance sheet metric launched by the ONS this year, was -£715bn on 30 November 2023, comprising £1,565bn in non-financial assets and £1,054bn in non-liquid financial assets minus £2,671bn of net debt (£303bn liquid financial assets – £2,974bn public sector gross debt) and other liabilities of £663bn. This is a £100bn deterioration from the -£615bn reported for 31 March 2023.

Revisions

Caution is needed with respect to the numbers published by the ONS, which are expected to be repeatedly revised as estimates are refined and gaps in the underlying data are filled. 

The latest release saw the ONS revise the reported deficit for the seven months to October 2023 up by £4bn from £98bn to £102bn as estimates of tax receipts and expenditure were updated for better data, while the debt to GDP ratio at the end of October 2023 was revised down by 1.2 percentage points from 97.8% to 96.6% as a consequence of updated estimates of GDP.

The ONS also revised up its estimates for the deficit for the financial years to March 2023 and 2022 respectively, by £3bn to £131bn for 2022/23 and by £2bn to £124bn for 2021/22.

This article was originally published by ICAEW.

ICAEW chart of the week: Civil service numbers

My chart for ICAEW this week illustrates how the civil service has grown by 92,000 or 23% to 496,000 FTEs over the past five years.

Step chart titled 'Civil service numbers'

(First column) September 2018: 179,000 ministerial departments, 22,000 in Scottish and Welsh governments, and 203,000 in agencies and non-ministerial departments = 404,000 total number of civil servants.

(Middle column) Change: +38,000 minisministerial departments, +10,000 Scottish and Welsh governments, +44,000 agencies and non-ministerial departments = +92,000 total change.

September 2023: 217,000 ministerial departments, 32,000 Scottish and Welsh governments, 247,000 agencies and non-ministerial departments = 496,000 total number of civil servants.

The number of civil servants has increased by 92,000 or 23% from 404,000 full-time equivalents (FTEs) in September 2018 to 496,000 FTEs in September 2023, which may be surprising in the light of government rhetoric about cutting public spending.

As my chart for ICAEW this week illustrates, the size of the UK civil service has grown significantly over the past five years. FTEs in ministerial departments have grown by 38,000 or 21% from 179,000 to 217,000, in the Scottish and Welsh governments by 10,000 or 45% from 22,000 to 32,000, and in agencies and non-ministerial departments by 44,000 or 22% from 203,000 to 247,000.

The civil service is just one part of the public sector workforce, which has increased by 571,000 or 13% from 4,433,000 to 5,004,000 FTEs over the same period. 300,000 of the increase has been in the NHS (up 21% from 1,451,000 to 1,751,000 FTEs in September 2023), which after taking account of the 92,000 increase in the civil service means the rest of the public sector workforce (schools, police, army, local government and others) has grown by a relatively slower number of 179,000 or 7% from 2,578,000 to 2,757,000 over the same period.

The increases in the civil service reverse cuts in the austerity years that saw the civil service fall from 493,000 FTEs in September 2009 to 384,000 in June 2016, just before the Brexit referendum.

The UK’s departure from the EU Single Market and the EU Customs Union on 31 December 2020 has been a major driver in the increase, most prominently in the Home Office, which has grown by 15,000 from 29,000 to 44,000 FTEs. Machinery of government changes make it difficult to track the other impacts, but it is likely that another 20,000 of the increase is likely driven by Brexit, made up of small changes across Whitehall departments and individual agencies, such as the 80% increase in the size of the Rural Payments Agency (from 1,400 to 2,600), 

The individual agency with the largest increase is HM Prisons and Probation Service, up 15,000 from 49,000 to 64,000 as the outsourced probation was re-absorbed back into the civil service.

The pandemic also had a small impact on the civil service (as opposed to the NHS) with the Department of Health and Social Security more than doubling in size from just under 1,500 FTEs in September 2018 to almost 3,200 in September 2023.

Some increases are more difficult to attribute, such as the 30% increase in the size of the National Crime Agency from 4,200 to 5,500 or the 9% increase in the size of HM Revenue and Customs from 57,100 to 62,000. Brexit is likely to be part of the story following the reversion of responsibilities from Brussels to London, but the growth of cybercrime (for example) in the past few years will also have been a factor.

The civil service numbers reported by the Office for National Statistics exclude civil servants working for the Northern Ireland Executive and its agencies, but do include both the Scottish and Welsh governments. Most of the growth in numbers from 22,000 to 32,000 has been in Scotland as more powers have been devolved to its devolved administration, with the 16,800 FTEs in September 2018 growing by 9,700 or 58% to 26,500 in September 2023. The size of the civil service in Wales has gone up by a much more modest 700 or 13% from 5,200 to 5,900 in the same period.

One possible driver for some of the other increases is that cuts in the civil service made during the austerity years were never sustainable in the longer-term, with the demands that drove those numbers never having gone away. Another is that governments tend to want to “get things done” and there is therefore a need to find people to do them. 

Both of these factors may explain why both government departments and agencies have grown in size over the past half a decade.

While the civil service is less than 10% of the public sector workforce, it is often the first place that the government looks when it wants to find cost savings – and the current government is no different in seeking to cut the size of the civil service again. Whether those costs savings are sustainable in the long-term without more fundamental reform is another matter.

This chart was originally published by ICAEW.

ICAEW chart of the week: Incorporations and dissolutions

My chart for ICAEW this week illustrates how company dissolutions continue to outpace incorporations as the economy remains in first gear.

Column chart titled 'Incorporations and dissolutions' with two-column comparisons over five years.

2019: 670,575 incorporations and 671, 501 dissolutions

2020: 758,012 and 536,564

2021: 762,278 and 807,049

2022: 778,219 and 876,521

2023: 801,831 and 825,980


7 Dec 2023.
Chart by Martin Wheatcroft FCA. Design by Sunday.

Source: ONS, 'Companies House incorporations and dissolutions, 7 Dec 2023'.

A key indicator for the health of the economy is the comparison between how many companies are created each year and the number that are dissolved, and our chart this week illustrates how these compare over the last four years up until 1 December 2023.

In 2019 there were 670,575 company incorporations and 671,501 dissolutions (391,066 compulsorily and 280,435 voluntarily), a net contraction in the number of companies of 926, consistent with the rather tepid economy we were experiencing in the year before the pandemic.

The numbers for 2020 were distorted by the pandemic, with incorporations rising to 758,012 and dissolutions falling to 536,564 (275,933 compulsorily and 260,631 voluntarily) – a net increase of 221,448. The rise in incorporations was no doubt contributed to by people deciding to start new businesses during lockdown, although bulk incorporations may also have been a factor. The significant fall in companies dissolved in 2020 compared with the previous year reflects government support on offer during the pandemic that propped up many companies that would otherwise have failed during 2020.

Incorporations rose further to 762,278 in 2021 and 778,219 in 2022, but these gains were more than offset by a sharp rise in dissolutions, which jumped to 807,049 (508,448 compulsorily and 289,604 voluntarily) in 2021 and 876,521 (572,646 compulsorily and 304,875 voluntarily) in 2022 as government support was withdrawn and reality caught up with many companies. Extremely high energy costs and high inflation were key factors in the demise of many businesses over this period. The net decrease in the number of companies was 44,771 in 2021 and 98,202 in 2022.

The number of companies incorporated during the first 11 months of 2023 was 801,831, a 9% rise on the equivalent period last year, while 825,980 companies were dissolved (539,643 compulsorily and 286,337 voluntarily), a rise of less than 1%. This has narrowed the gap to a contraction of 24,149 companies in the first 11 months of 2023.

While these numbers may be accurate to the nearest digit (unlike most sample-based statistics), their meaning for the economy is much less precise. Many companies are incorporated but never go on to trade, while some incorporations are merely a corporate wrapper around an existing business, or with personal service companies they can be a conversion of economic activity from one legal form to another. Unfortunately, companies are also sometimes incorporated for fraudulent purposes. Similarly, companies are wound up for a range of reasons and not just because they are all the consequence of failing businesses.

Despite that, they do provide a helpful indicator on what is going on with the economy, as the ‘cycle of business life’ is played out. For example, in theory it should be positive that even after a post-pandemic ‘shakeout’ the total number of companies over the period from 2019 to 1 December 2023 has grown by 53,300.

This may also be a statistic worth watching in 2024 as Companies House uses its new powers to weed out companies in the register. Just how significant will the introduction of new verification procedures and more active enforcement activity be to numbers of companies being incorporated and dissolved each year?

This chart was originally published by ICAEW.

ICAEW chart of the week: Exploding debt

My chart for ICAEW this week takes a look at how UK public debt has exploded since the financial crisis to more than quintuple from £0.6trn in March 2008 to a projected £3.1trn in March 2029.

Exploding debt

Step chart showing how UK public sector net has changed between March 2008 and the projected position in March 2029.

[debt bars shaded orange, changes shaded in purple]

March 2008: £0.6trn
Financial crisis: +£0.7trn
March 2012: £1.3trn
Austerity years: +£0.5trn
March 2020: £1.8trn
Pandemic / energy crisis: +£0.9trn
March 2024: £2.7trn

[bar colours shaded by 50% to indicate the following are projected numbers]

Latest plan: +£0.4trn
March 2029:  £3.1trn

30 Nov 2023.
Chart by Martin Wheatcroft FCA. Design by Sunday.
Source: OBR, 'Public finances databank - Nov 2023'.

As illustrated by our chart this week, the sums borrowed by the government since the financial crisis of a decade and half ago have been truly astonishing. 

In March 2008, the official measure of net debt for the UK public sector was less than £0.6trn. During the financial crisis, government borrowing totalled £0.7trn over a four-year period, causing public sector net debt to more than double to £1.3bn in March 2012. 

The eight austerity years saw government cut spending on public services to a significant degree but still borrow a further £0.5trn to see net debt reach £1.8trn in March 2020 – arguably not mending the roof while the sun was shining. This was then followed by an exceptional amount of borrowing during four years of pandemic and energy crisis (including the current financial year) that is expected to see net debt increase by a total of £0.9trn to reach £2.7trn in March 2024.

The Autumn Statement 2023 on Wednesday 22 November saw the Chancellor set out his latest plan for the UK public finances over the next five financial years. This includes a further £0.4trn of borrowing, with public sector net debt projected to amount to £3.1trn in March 2029 – more than quintuple the net amount owed by the UK state 21 years earlier in March 2008.

This assumes that the government can stick to its borrowing plans – many commentators have suggested that planned cuts in spending on public services are unrealistic, meaning more borrowing if taxes are not to rise.

The £2.5trn increase in debt between 2008 and 2029 comprises £2.2trn in borrowing to fund 21 years of deficits (the annual shortfall between receipts and spending) and £0.3trn in other borrowing to fund government lending (such as student loans) and working capital requirements.

As a share of the economy, the increase is less dramatic but still significant – rising from a net debt to GDP ratio of 35.6% in March 2008, to 74.3% in March 2012, to 85.2% in March 2020, to an anticipated 97.9% in March 2024. However, the good news is that net debt / GDP is expected to fall to 94.1% in March 2029 as inflation and economic growth offset the additional borrowing.

The worry for this (or any alternative) government is that while borrowing levels in the OBR’s forecast spreadsheet for the next five years appear manageable and are (just) within the current fiscal rules, the numbers assume that we don’t enter another recession or other economic crisis in that time. Otherwise, we could see debt exploding again.

This chart was originally published by ICAEW.

ICAEW chart of the week: Autumn Statement 2023

My chart for ICAEW this week illustrates how Chancellor Jeremy Hunt used almost all of the available upside from inflation and fiscal drag to fund his tax measures and a series of business growth initiatives.

Autumn Statement 2023

Step chart (waterfall diagram) showing the average change to 2023/24 to 2027/28 forecasts since the Spring Budget 2023.

Forecast revisions (steps in orange):

Inflation +$41bn
Fiscal drag +£7bn
Other changes +£4bn
Debt interest -£21bn
Welfare uprating -£13bn

= Forecast revisions +£18bn (subtotal in purple)

Policy measures (steps in blue):

Tax measures -£11bn
Spending and other -£6bn

= Net changes +£1bn (total in purple)


23 Nov 2023.
Chart by Martin Wheatcroft FCA. Design by Sunday.
Sources: HM Treasury, 'Autumn Statement 2023'; OBR, 'Economic and fiscal outlook, Nov 2023'.

The Autumn Statement 2023 on Wednesday 22 November featured a surprise tax cut to national insurance and a perhaps less surprising decision to make full expensing of business capital expenditure permanent.

As my chart illustrates, the forecasts for the deficit over the next five years benefited by £41bn a year on average in higher receipts from inflation, £7bn a year on average in additional ‘fiscal drag’ as higher inflation erodes the value of frozen tax allowances more quickly, and a net £4bn in other upward forecast revisions. These improvements to the forecasts were offset by an average of £21bn a year in higher debt interest and £13bn from the expected inflation-driven uprating of the state pension and welfare benefits, to arrive at a net improvement of £18bn a year on average over the five financial years from 2023/24 to 2027/28 before policy decisions.

In theory, these upward forecast revisions should be absorbed by more spending on public services as higher inflation feeds through into salaries and procurement costs. However, the Chancellor has chosen to (in effect) sharply cut public spending and use almost all of the upward revisions to fund tax measures and business growth initiatives instead. These amounted to £11bn a year on average in tax changes and £6bn a year on average in spending increases and other changes to reduce the net impact to just £1bn a year on average over the five-year period.

The resulting net change of £1bn on average in forecasts for the deficit is to reduce the forecast deficit by £8bn for the current year (from £132bn to £124bn) and by £1bn for 2024/25 (to £85bn), with no net change in 2025/26 (at £77bn), an increase of £5bn in 2027/28 (to £68bn), and no net change for 2027/28 (at £49bn).

The main tax changes announced were the cuts in national insurance for employees by 2 percentage points from 12% to 10% and by 1 percentage point for the self-employed from 9% to 8%, reducing tax receipts by an average of £9bn over five years. This is combined with the effect of making full expensing permanent of £4bn – this change mainly affects the later years of the forecast (£11bn in 2027/28), although ironically the average is a better proxy for the long-term cost of this change, which the OBR estimates is around £3bn a year. 

Other tax changes offset this to a small extent. 

Spending and other changes of £6bn a year on average comprise incremental spending of £7bn a year plus £2bn higher debt interest to fund that spending, less £3bn in positive economic effects from that spending and from the tax measures above.

Although the cumulative fiscal deficit over five years has been revised down by £4bn, the OBR has revised its forecast for public sector net debt as of 31 March 2028 up by £94bn from to £3,004bn. This principally reflects changes in the planned profile of quantitative tightening and higher lending to students and businesses.

The big gamble the Chancellor appears to be making by choosing to opt for tax cuts now is that the OBR and Bank of England’s pessimistic forecasts for the economy are not realised – enabling him to find extra money in future fiscal events to cover the effect of inflation on public service spending. Otherwise, while it may be possible to cut public spending by as much as the Autumn Statement suggests, it is difficult to see how he can do so without a further deterioration in the quality of public services given he is not providing any additional investment in technology, people and process transformation to deliver sustainable efficiency gains.

This chart was originally published by ICAEW.

Public sector net debt hits an unprecedented £2.6trn

Monthly public sector finances for October saw spending continue to exceed receipts by a large margin, even if by less than was predicted earlier in the year.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) released the month public sector finances for October on Tuesday 21 November 2023. It reported a provisional deficit for the month of October of £15bn, bringing the cumulative deficit for the first seven months of the year to £98bn, £22bn more than in the same period last year.

Alison Ring OBE FCA, Public Sector and Taxation Director for ICAEW, said: “Although it is positive that the cumulative deficit to October of £98bn is less than the £115bn predicted by the OBR, cash going out continues to exceed cash coming in by a very large margin. Public sector net debt has now exceeded £2.6 trillion for the first time, which is a staggering new record.  

“Tomorrow’s Autumn Statement will see the OBR revise and roll forward its forecast, giving the Chancellor so-called headroom to cut taxes or increase spending. But in reality there is no headroom when the public finances continue to be on an unsustainable path without a long-term fiscal strategy to fix them.”

Month of October 2023

The provisional shortfall in taxes and other receipts compared with total managed expenditure for the month of October 2023 was £15bn, made up of tax and other receipts of £85bn less total managed expenditure of £100bn, up 3% and 6% respectively compared with October 2022. 

This was the second highest October deficit on record since monthly records began in 1993, following a monthly deficit of £18bn in October 2020 at the height of the pandemic.

Public sector net debt as of 31 October 2023 was £2,644bn or 97.8% of GDP, the first time it has exceeded £2.6trn – only eight months after it first reached £2.5trn.

Seven months to October 2023

The provisional shortfall in taxes and other receipts compared with total managed expenditure for the seven months to October 2023 was £98bn, £22bn more than the £76bn deficit reported for the first seven months of 2022/23. This reflected a widening gap between tax and other receipts for the seven months of £595bn and total managed expenditure of £693bn, up 5% and 8% respectively compared with April to October 2022.

Inflation benefited tax receipts for the first seven months compared with the first half of the previous year, with income tax up 10% to £137bn and VAT up 9% to £117bn. Corporation tax receipts were up 12% to £55bn, partly reflecting the increase in the corporation tax rate from 19% to 25% from 1 April 2023, while national insurance receipts were down by 4% to £99bn because of the abolition of the short-lived health and social care levy last year. Stamp duty on properties was down by 27% to £8bn and the total for all other taxes was up just 3% to £115bn, much less than inflation as economic activity slowed. Non-tax receipts were up 10% to £63bn, primarily driven by higher investment income.

Total managed expenditure of £693bn in the seven months to October 2023 can be analysed between current expenditure excluding interest of £587bn, up £39bn or 7% over the same period in the previous year, interest of £76bn, up £4bn or 5%, and net investment of £30bn, up £9bn or 44%.

The increase of £39bn in current expenditure excluding interest was driven by a £20bn increase in pension and other welfare (including cost-of-living payments), £12bn in higher central government pay, £6bn in additional central government procurement spending, plus £1bn in net other changes.

The rise in interest costs for the seven months of £4bn to £76bn comprises a £18bn or 53% increase to £52bn for interest not linked to inflation as the Bank of England base rate rose, mostly offset by an £14bn or 37% fall to £24bn for interest accrued on index-linked debt from lower inflation than last year.The £9bn increase in net investment spending to £30bn in the first seven months of the current year reflects high construction cost inflation amongst other factors that saw a £11bn or 17% increase in gross investment to £65bn, less a £2bn or 6% increase in depreciation to £35bn. 

Public sector finance trends: October 2023

Table showing receipts, expenditure, interest, net investment, deficit, other borrowing and debt movement for the seven months to October 2023 plus net debt and net debt / GDP at 31 October 2023.

Receipts: £466bn (Oct 2019), £425bn (Oct 2020), £500bn (Oct 2021), £565bn (Oct 2022), £595bn (Oct 2023)
Expenditure: (£457bn), (£582bn), (£536bn), (£548bn), (£587bn)
Interest: (£38bn), (£26bn), (£41bn), (£72bn), (£76bn)
Net investment: (£20bn), (£42bn), (£28bn), (£21bn), (£30bn)
[line above subtotal]
Deficit: (£49bn), (£225bn), (£105bn), (£76bn), (£98bn)
Other borrowing: £5bn, (£61bn), (£61bn), £5bn, (£7bn)
[line above total]
Debt movement:  (£44bn), (£286bn), (£166bn), (£71bn), (£105bn)
[line below total]

Net debt: £1,821bn, £2,101bn, £2,319bn, £2,454bn, £2,644bn.
Net debt / GDP: 82.1%, 99.3%, 97.5%, 95.5%, 97.8%

The cumulative deficit of £98bn is £17bn lower than the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR)’s official forecast of £115bn for the first seven months of 2023/24 as compiled in March 2023. The OBR is expected to revise its forecast for the full year deficit down from £132bn in tomorrow’s Autumn Statement, but it is still on track to be more than double the £50bn projection for 2023/24 set out in the official forecast from a year earlier (March 2022). 

Balance sheet metrics

Public sector net debt was £2,644bn at the end of October 2023, equivalent to 97.8% of GDP.

The debt movement since the start of the financial year was £105bn, comprising borrowing to fund the deficit for the seven months of £98bn plus £7bn in net cash outflows to fund lending to students, businesses and others net of loan repayments together with working capital movements.

Public sector net debt is £829bn more than the £1,815bn reported for 31 March 2020 at the start of the pandemic and £2,106bn more than the £538bn number as of 31 March 2007 before the financial crisis, reflecting the huge sums borrowed over the last couple of decades.

Public sector net worth, the new balance sheet metric launched by the ONS this year, was -£716bn on 31 October 2023, comprising £1,565bn in non-financial assets, £1,029bn in non-liquid financial assets, £2,644bn of net debt (£305bn in liquid financial assets less public sector gross debt of £2,949bn) and other liabilities of £666bn. This is a £102bn deterioration from the -£614bn reported for 31 March 2023.

Revisions

Caution is needed with respect to the numbers published by the ONS, which are expected to be repeatedly revised as estimates are refined and gaps in the underlying data are filled. 

The latest release saw the ONS revise the reported deficit for the six months to September 2023 up by £1.7bn as estimates of tax receipts and expenditure were updated for better data, while the debt to GDP ratio at the end of September 2023 was revised down by 1.4 percentage points from 97.8% to 96.4% as a consequence of updated estimates of GDP.

This article was originally published by ICAEW.

ICAEW chart of the week: Pensioners dilemma

The ‘elephant in the room’ of growing numbers of pensioners and what that will mean for the long-term prospects of the public finances is likely to be avoided yet again at next week’s Autumn Statement.

Pensioners dilemma

Two column chart with lines between them showing projected changes in the UK population between 2023 and 2043.

2023: 68.1m (left hand column) Change: +4.0m (+6%)
2043: 72.1m (right hand column)

Split into two bars in each column.

Pensioners (in purple)

2023: 12.4m
Change: +3.3m (+27%)
2043: 15.7m

Everyone else

2023: 56.7m
Change +0.7m (+1%)
2043: 56.4m

My chart for ICAEW this week is on the ‘elephant in the room’ that haunts fiscal events such as next week’s Autumn Statement – the rapidly rising number of pensioners that is driving some of the biggest line items in the national budget: pensions, health and social care.

This fiscal event is unlikely to be any different, with the Chancellor expected to focus most of his statement on short-term measures to free up headroom for pre-election tax cuts at a time of stagnant economic growth.

Any substantive discussion on the long-term prospects for the public finances is likely to be absent beyond a continued commitment to seeing the debt to GDP ratio start to fall within the next five years. How he – or more likely his successors – might be able to avoid having to raise taxes significantly in the coming decades to pay for the cost of pensions, health and social care for many more people, living longer, sometimes less healthy lives, is unlikely to be at the core of what is announced.

To illustrate the dilemma facing policymakers and the public, our chart shows how pensioners represent 3.3m out of the 4.0m projected increase in the size of the UK population between 2023 and 2043. The total population of the UK is projected to increase by 6% from 68.1m in 2023 to 72.1m in 2043, with the number of pensioners expected to increase by 27% from 12.4m this year to 15.7m in 20 years’ time. 

The number of non-pensioners is expected to increase by 0.7m or 1% from 55.7m to 56.4m, with net inward migration of 5.0m over that period offsetting what would otherwise be a significant fall in the numbers below retirement age. (Not shown in the chart is a projected 3% rise in the working age population and a 7% fall in the number of children.)

The projected 27% rise in the number of pensioners is despite a planned increase in the state pension age from age 66 to age 67 in 2027, one of the few long-term steps the government has taken to mitigate the fiscal effects of rising pensioner numbers. However, increasing the retirement age doesn’t directly impact health and social care costs, as well as being partly offset by the cost of supporting increasing numbers of people out of work between traditional retirement age and the age at which they can take their state pension.

Given the significance of the demographic challenge to the public finances, there is very little public debate on what to do, especially as the current policy of cutting the proportion of spending going on public services outside of health appears increasingly unsustainable. 

Spending on defence and security (the traditional budget to raid) is already close to the NATO minimum and appears likely to need to increase given the global security situation, while extracting further savings from other public services seems extremely unlikely, especially given the reluctance of successive governments to put in the level of upfront and ongoing capital investment that might make operational savings possible.

The irony is that, unlike the game-theory scenario of the prisoners’ dilemma that makes optimal decision-making difficult for two prisoners who can’t communicate with each other, there is no theoretical restriction on the ability of policymakers to talk to the public about the pensioners dilemma and to have a proper debate about that might mean for taxes and public services in the long term.

Read moreICAEW Autumn Statement 2023 hub.

This chart was originally published by ICAEW.

ICAEW chart of the week: Coronavirus

My chart this week looks at one of the big questions being looked at by the UK COVID-19 Inquiry: why did the UK experience one of the highest death rates in the developed world?

Coronavirus

Column chart showing deaths per million population, with each column broken into 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 (to 2 Nov) components.

Year components only labelled for the UK 

Japan - 603 (28 in 2020, 120 in 2021, 316 in 2022, 139 in 2023 up to 2 Nov) 
Australia - 893 (35, 58, 587, 212)
Canada - 1,395 (397, 382, 498, 118)
Ireland - 1,848 (451, 761, 480, 156)
Germany - 2,099 (564, 848, 576, 111)
France - 2,599 (983, 938, 580, 98)
Italy - 3,259 (1,247, 1,078, 805, 129)
USA - 3,365 (1,041, 1,381, 786, 157)
UK - 3,421 (1,382, 1237, 583, 219)
Greece - 3,635 (451, 1,524, 1,393, 267)


9 Nov 2023.
Chart by Martin Wheatcroft FCA. Design by Sunday.

Source: Our World In Data, ‘COVID-19 data explorer’ / WHO, ‘Covid-19 dashboard’.

My chart for ICAEW this week is on the coronavirus pandemic and how, according to World Health Organisation (WHO) data as summarised by Our World in Data’s Covid-19 Data Explorer, the UK suffered one of the highest death rates in the developed world.

According to the official statistics, there were 3,421 deaths per million population attributed to COVID-19 in the UK between 1 January 2020 and 2 November 2023. This compares with 603 deaths per million in Japan, 893 in Australia, 1,395 in Canada, 1,848 in Ireland, 2,099 in Germany, 2,599 in France, 3,259 in Italy, 3,365 in the US and 3,635 in Greece.

Not shown in the chart are the total number of cumulative deaths attributed to COVID-19 (ie before dividing by the population) of 74,694 in Japan, 23,289 in Australia, 53,297 in Canada, 9,281 in Ireland, 174,979 in Germany, 167,985 in France, 192,406 in Italy, 1.14m in the USA, 230,974 in the UK, and 37,738 in Greece.

Both Our World In Data and the WHO give warnings about the data, especially given difficulties in identifying which deaths were caused by the coronavirus (especially in 2020 before testing was widely available), whether deaths are recorded when they happened or when they were reported, and differences in how countries attribute deaths to causes. 

Despite those factors, these statistics give an overall impression of how badly the coronavirus affected different countries, especially when combined with other data, such as excess mortality (also not shown in the chart). According to Our World In Data, the cumulative difference between total deaths reported from all causes and projected deaths (based on an extrapolation from the years prior to the pandemic) changes the rankings for the countries in our chart, improving the UK’s position to an extent with the US has more excess deaths proportionately than the UK, and Italy more than Greece. Australia has the lowest level of excess deaths for these countries, below Japan, while France is between Canada and Ireland.

The chart also illustrates the deaths per million of population by year, highlighting how for the UK this was 1,382 in 2020, 1,237 in 2021, 583 in 2022, and 219 in 2023, up to 2 November 2023.

The UK COVID-19 Inquiry is looking at much more than the number of deaths as it considers how coronavirus affected all of us over the past few years, how people were affected, including short- and long-term impacts on health and how people died, as well as the impact on the economy and our lives more generally of COVID-19 – and the UK Government’s response to it.

This chart was originally published by ICAEW.