Tag: #publicfinances

Chief Secretary brands Treasury ‘new radicals in government’

3 August 2020: Chief Secretary to the Treasury Steve Barclay delivered his first speech last week, providing fresh detail on the plan for the Spending Review.

Steve Barclay’s first speech as Chief Secretary, delivered to thinktank Onward on Tuesday 28 July 2020, set out how he believes Treasury can be an accelerator of change in government.

He sees the Spending Review as a significant moment in the lifecycle of any government, but with the current review being conducted against the backdrop of the most challenging peacetime economic circumstances in living memory.

Despite that, the Government believes the recovery from this pandemic can be a moment for national renewal, with the Spending Review acting as the mechanism to deliver the Prime Minister’s ambition to ‘level up’ the country.

As a constituency MP, Barclay said he has run up against a system that is slow and siloed. By way of an example, he asked why there is a seven-year gap between funding being agreed for a road scheme and the first digger arriving? Or why it takes a decade to decide to produce a full business case on whether to re-open eight miles of railway track?

The lack of upfront clarity on outcomes, the slow speed of delivery and the variable quality of data within government are all areas the Spending Review provides an opportunity to challenge.

The Chief Secretary stressed that to ‘level up’ the country properly, the Government needs to ensure that Treasury decision-making better reflects the UK’s economic geography, with more balanced judgments taking into consideration the transformative potential of investment to drive localised growth.

He drew on the speed of change during the pandemic, with the furlough scheme taking just one month from being announced to being opened for applications when normally such schemes take months – years even – to deliver.

He asked if the wheels of government can be made to spin this fast in a crisis, with all the added pressures of lockdown, why can’t it happen routinely?

Time to level up

The Chief Secretary stated that the actions being taken to support businesses and jobs during the pandemic are the right thing to do, even though it comes at a cost. The cost of inaction would be far greater, he claimed.

Even though the Prime Minister has made it clear that austerity is not the answer to navigating a much-changed economic landscape, departments will have to make tough choices in the months ahead.

The commitment to reviewing the Green Book investment manual was reiterated with changes planned to allow room for more balanced judgments on investments to reduce inequality and drive localised growth.

During the speech, Barclay listed several priorities for government in the Spending Review:

  • accelerating the UK’s economic recovery;
  • levelling-up opportunity across the country;
  • improving public services; and
  • making the UK a scientific superpower.

Outcomes, speed and data

To achieve these objectives, the Chief Secretary focused on three key approaches: outcomes, speed and data.

On outcomes, the Spending Review would try to tie expenditure and performance more closely together, with Treasury having clearer sight of both intended outcomes and subsequent evaluation of their delivery. 

For some of the most complex policy challenges, this will involve breaking the silos between departments, and pilot projects are currently being used to test innovative ways of bringing the public sector together.

On speed, Barclay noted that this is a ‘hallmark of the digital era’. Programmes need to start with robust goals and the temptation to repeatedly change plans has to be resisted if the UK is to bring down capital costs that are typically between 10% and 30% higher than in other European countries. A new Infrastructure Delivery Task Force (known as Project Speed) will be established to cut down the time it takes to develop, design and deliver vital projects.

This will involve more standardisation and modularisation between projects, for example in speeding housing construction. The Spending Review will seek to accelerate the adoption of Modern Methods of Construction and explicitly link funding decisions to schemes that priorities it.

On data, the Chief Secretary believes that government is behind the curve when it comes to obtaining, analysing, and enabling access to open data. It remains the case that decisions still rely heavily on spreadsheets from departments rather than data directly sourced in real time. Work has already begun to incentivise departments and arms-length bodies to supply higher quality standardised data and to support the Treasury to better interrogate this data.

Building this will involve sorting out the data architecture as well as the data sets, and the Spending Review will focus on addressing legacy IT and investing in the data infrastructure needed to become a “truly digital government”.

The new radicals

Barclay concluded with stressing the importance of taking risks, setting ambitious goals and experimenting with ways of delivery, even if failure is a possibility. He wants to move beyond a simple yes/no approach to public spending and instead bring together people, ideas and best practice from inside and outside government.

He concluded: “This is an opportunity for the Treasury to capture the ‘can do’ attitude shown by civil servants during the COVID pandemic and make it permanent. To be the new radicals, leading change across government.

“Done well, we can move on from an era of spreadsheets. We can create a smarter and faster culture in Whitehall. And we can ensure that Britain does indeed bounce back from this crisis stronger and better than before.”

Speech by Steve Barclay MP, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, on 28 July 2020.

This article was originally published by ICAEW.

Whole of Government Accounts hidden within announcements blizzard

24 July 2020: The UK celebrated 10 years of consolidated financial statements for the public sector with the publication of the Whole of Government Accounts for 2018-19.

The UK Government published its 10th Whole of Government Accounts (WGA) on Tuesday 21 July 2020, the day before Parliament packed up for the summer. The WGA is one of the most important public documents there is, but it was overshadowed by being put out on the busiest day for the year for government announcements, as departments rushed to finalise reports and get them out of the door while they still could.

Meeting this deadline was even more important this year, as a further delay until after the summer recess would have been extremely embarrassing. At just over 15½ months, the time taken to publish the WGA is substantially longer than the two to three months usually taken to prepare the annual reports of comparable private sector organisations. Even taking account of the additional three months caused by the pandemic, it takes a lot longer than the six to nine months that might be reasonably possible given the structure and reporting timescales applicable to public sector bodies in the UK.

Despite that, the WGA remains one of the most critical documents published by the government each year, providing a comprehensive report on the financial performance and position of the UK public sector for the 2018-19 financial year. In particular, it includes a full set of consolidated financial statements prepared under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) instead of the much more limited headline fiscal measures of deficit and deficit normally used by the government when it reports on the public finances.

The WGA for 2018-19 reported revenue of £796bn and expenditure of £896bn before taking account of a £102bn credit from a change in discount rates. This gave rise to loss before the discount rate change of £100bn and an overall accounting surplus of £2bn for the year.

Total assets recorded in the balance sheet amounted to £2.1tn, including £1.3bn in fixed assets, £0.6tn of investments, cash and other financial assets, and £0.2bn in receivables and other assets. Total liabilities amounted to £4.6tn, including £2.2tn of financial liabilities, £1.9tn of employee pension obligations, £0.3tn in provisions and £0.2tn of payables and other liabilities. This means the balance sheet is in a substantially negative position, with net liabilities attributable to taxpayers of £2.5tn.

The financial statements, presented in the standard format familiar to readers of corporate reports, are accompanied by an extensive financial commentary analysing revenue, expenditure, assets and liabilities, as well as financial commitments and contingent liabilities. The overall WGA document is 200 pages long, similar in length to many corporate reports, albeit it has been expanded a little with disclosures on two major events after the balance sheet date: the withdrawal agreement with the European Union and the financial effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

The audit opinion on the financial statements continues to be qualified by the Comptroller & Auditor-General for a number of reasons, including the recurring decision not to consolidate the government-controlled Royal Bank of Scotland (now NatWest Group), a major inconsistency between central and local government in accounting for roads, the failure by the Ministry of Defence to look for embedded leases in its contracts, and using August 2018 rather than March 2019 numbers for academy schools. There are two matters of emphasis relating to the valuation of nuclear decommissioning provisions and the calculation of fair value disclosures on the Hinkley Point C nuclear electricity contract for difference.

ICAEW has put together a short summary analysis highlighting the key elements of the WGA, which you can read here.

This article was originally published by ICAEW.

ICAEW chart of the week: Whole of Government Accounts

24 July 2020: Liabilities of £4.6tn exceeded assets of £2.1tn at 31 March 2019 in the latest set of consolidated financial statements for the UK public sector.

UK public sector balance sheet at 31 March 2019: liabilities £4,555bn, assets £2,099bn, taxpayer equity -£2,456bn.

The topic for the #icaewchartoftheweek is the Whole of Government Accounts (WGA) published on Tuesday. Despite taking 15½ months to prepare (way too long, even with the additional delays caused by the pandemic), this is still one the most important documents published by the Government each year.

The good news is that the UK is one of the leading countries in the world in providing fiscal transparency, with this being the tenth WGA, incorporating the financial results of over 9,000 public bodies for the 2018-19 financial year. While many countries are working to adopt accruals-accounting for their public finances, the UK is still the only major economy to publish a full set of accounts covering all levels of government in accordance with internationally recognised accounting standards.

The bad news is the financial position presented by those financial statements, highlighting the weaknesses in the public finances that existed even before the coronavirus pandemic. Total liabilities of £4.6tn at 31 March 2019 were substantially higher than the £1.8bn reported for the headline measure of debt in the National Accounts, prepared in accordance with statistical standards.

To find out more, ICAEW has put together a summary analysis of the Whole of Government Accounts 2018-19.

Alternatively, the full 200 pages of accounting and disclosure goodness that constitutes the WGA can be found here.

This chart was originally published by ICAEW.

OBR: Pandemic worsens long-term outlook for public finances

20 July 2020: The Office for Budget Responsibility suggests tax rises or spending cuts of more than £60bn a year may be needed if the UK public finances are to be put onto a sustainable path.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has reported that the public finances are unsustainable over the next 25 to 50 years, given expected levels of economic growth and pressures on public spending from more people living longer. Fiscal risks have also increased significantly with two ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ economic shocks occurring in just over a decade.

Without action to increase taxes or cut spending over the next few decades, the OBR projects that the gap between receipts and public spending before interest will widen from around 1% of GDP in 2019-20 to between 10% and 15% in 2069-70, depending on how quickly the UK recovers from the coronavirus pandemic. Public sector net debt could increase to between 320% of GDP and 520% of GDP, based on the assumptions made.

The OBR has highlighted how the coronavirus pandemic has not only worsened the immediate prospects for the UK and global economies, but ‘economic scarring’ will permanently damage the expected level of tax receipts over the next 50 years. The vulnerability of the public finances to potential future economic shocks has also increased significantly.

The OBR believes that a V-shaped economy is still possible, but this is now considered to be an upside scenario, with the OBR’s central scenario based on a much slower recovery from the pandemic. The downside scenario takes even longer for the economy to recover.

Economic activity, as measured by GDP, and tax receipts are both expected to be lower in all scenarios than in previous forecasts.

Prospects for the public finances in the current financial year have continued to deteriorate with the OBR now forecasting a fiscal deficit between 15% and 23% of GDP, with a central scenario of £372bn (19% of GDP). This reflects a total of £192bn in fiscal interventions in 2020-21 announced by the Government to date to support the UK economy through the pandemic.

The OBR projects that in its central scenario the gap between receipts and expenditure excluding interest will widen to almost 13% of GDP by 2069-70 if no actions are taken, equivalent to almost £300bn in 2019-20 terms. With much higher levels of debt, and interest rates likely to be higher in the medium to long-term, this could cause the fiscal deficit to increase to over 30% of GDP in 50 years time.

The OBR has calculated that ‘fiscal tightening’ in the order of 2.9% of GDP (£64bn a year) would be required based on a target level for public sector net debt of 75% of GDP. This is subject to a number of fiscal risks, including that no further significant changes are made to the planned profile of spending on health and social care – a key source of policy risk.

Closing this gap could require potentially very significant levels of tax increases or cuts in public spending, especially if difficult decisions, such as on how to fund social care, continue to be deferred.

Martin Wheatcroft FCA, adviser to ICAEW on public finances, commented: “The Office for Budget Responsibility has yet again assessed the public finances and concluded that they are not sustainable, even before taking account of the eye-watering levels of borrowing being added to the national debt as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic.

Although we should expect tax cuts and spending increases in the immediate future as the Government looks to provide stimulus to the economy, the need to reduce the gap between tax receipts and public spending over the medium- to long-term means that tax rises or further cuts in public spending are likely in the years to come.

Despite this, there are actions that could be taken to improve the outlook for the public finances by developing a long-term fiscal strategy to put the public finances onto a sustainable path.”

Table 1 – OBR projections for the public finances: central scenario

CENTRAL SCENARIO2019-20
% OF GDP		2020-21
% OF GDP		2024-25
% OF GDP		2044-45
% OF GDP		2069-70
% OF GDP
Receipts excluding interest36.136.336.636.636.4
Expenditure excluding interest(37.2)(54.4)(40.3)(43.9)(49.1)
Primary deficit(1.1)(18.1)(3.7)(7.3)(12.7)
Net interest(1.5)(0.8)(0.9)(6.2)(17.8)
Fiscal deficit(2.6)(18.9)(4.6)(13.5)(30.5)

Public sector net debt
(88.5)
(106.6)
(102.1)
(173.7)
(418.4)

Source: OBR, ‘Fiscal sustainability report July 2020’.  2020-21 amounts adjusted for £50bn (2.5% of GDP) of additional fiscal interventions announced on 8 July 2020. Subsequent periods not adjusted.

Table 2 – OBR projections for the public finances: upside and downside scenarios

DIFFERENCES FROM     
CENTRAL SCENARIO       		                2020-21
% OF GDP		2024-25
% OF GDP		2044-45
% OF GDP		2069-70
% OF GDP
Upside scenario
Primary deficit3.62.12.22.3
Fiscal deficit3.62.23.86.5
Public sector net debt9.314.145.798.2
Downside scenario
Primary deficit(4.3)(2.2)(2.3)(2.4)
Fiscal deficit(4.3)(2.2)(3.9)(6.9)
Public sector net debt(9.1)(14.5)(47.9)(103.5)

Sources: OBR, ‘Fiscal sustainability report July 2020’; ICAEW calculations.
Positive differences = lower deficit or lower debt in percentage points of GDP; (negative) differences = higher deficit or higher debt.

This article was originally published by ICAEW.

ICAEW chart of the week: Fiscal interventions

10 July 2020: Fiscal interventions reach £190bn as the Chancellor Rishi Sunak pours even more money into the economy in an attempt to keep it from stalling.

Components of £190bn in fiscal interventions - as set out in text below.

The Chancellor’s summer statement is the subject of this week’s #icaewchartoftheweek, with the £30bn ‘plan for jobs’ being the latest in a series of fiscal interventions in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
 
The measures announced included £9bn for a £1,000 job retention bonus for furloughed workers, £4bn for work placements and boosting work searching, skills training and apprenticeships, a £5bn boost for the hospitality and leisure industries in the form of a cut in VAT and discounts on eating out, and £12bn in economic stimulus. The latter includes over £5bn on infrastructure projects (as announced by the Prime Minister last week), £3bn to make homes energy-efficient and £4bn for a temporary cut in SDLT on housing sales under £500,000.
 
This brings the total amount of fiscal interventions to £190bn or around 9% of GDP, once an extra £33bn in spending on health and other public services is incorporated. This was also ‘announced’ yesterday, albeit by means of a small footnote buried inside one of the accompanying documents!
 
As a consequence, the fiscal interventions can be broadly split between £77bn being spent on supporting household incomes (£54bn on the furlough scheme, £15bn on the self-employed income support scheme and £8bn on universal credit), £30bn to support businesses (£13bn in business rates and other tax reliefs and £17bn in grants and other support), £53bn for public services and other (£39bn on health and social care and £14bn on public services and other spending), and £30bn in economic stimulus through the ‘plan for jobs’.
 
Businesses have also benefited from support with their cashflows through the deferral of £50bn in tax payments and £73bn of loans and guarantees.
 
This is not the end of the story for fiscal interventions. Not only are there are a number of sectors such as local government, universities, and manufacturing where rescue packages may be needed, but the Chancellor made clear that this announcement only covered the second of a three-phase response.
 
The third phase – rebuilding the economy – will be set out later in the year. How much additional money will be involved is anyone’s guess.

This article was originally published by ICAEW.

Further fiscal interventions focused on post-furlough future

9 July 2020: Chancellor announces £30bn in new measures to support, protect and create jobs, bringing total fiscal interventions to £190bn.

The Chancellor used his summer statement speech to set out a phased approach to the UK Government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The first phase – the existing measures already taken during the pandemic – was about the protection of the economy during lockdown, while the second phase – the subject of yesterday’s announcement – is about jobs. The third phase – to be announced later in the year – will be about rebuilding the economy and investing for the future.

As anticipated, the summer statement promised substantial sums to support the economy as it emerges from lockdown, with the Plan for Jobs including £30bn in additional funding measures to support, protect and create jobs through economic stimulus.

  • £9.4bn – Job Retention Bonus: £1,000 for keeping furloughed staff on until January
  • £2.1bn – Kickstart work placements for those aged 16-24
  • £1.6bn – boosting work searching, skills and apprenticeships
  • £4.1bn – temporary cut in VAT on hospitality, accommodation and attractions
  • £0.5bn – discounts on eating out
  • £5.6bn – infrastructure investment announced by the Prime Minister last week
  • £1.1bn – public sector and social housing decarbonisation
  • £2.0bn – grants to make private homes more energy-efficient
  • £3.8bn – six-month cut in stamp duty to stimulate the housing market

This takes total fiscal interventions announced by the government to around £190bn, including the £1.3bn for cultural institutions announced a few days ago.

When combined with lower tax revenues, this is expected to result in a fiscal deficit in 2020-21 in excess of £300bn. A better estimate should be available next week from the Office for Budget Responsibility when it updates its short and long-term forecasts.

The amounts above do not include tax deferrals and business loans and guarantees, which have now reached a total of £123bn.

It is as yet unclear whether there will be any statements about the planned third phase on rebuilding the economy before the Budget and spending review later in the autumn when plans for 2021-22 and beyond will be set out in more detail. 

There was significant disappointment in some quarters that the National Infrastructure Strategy, originally scheduled to be published in March, has still not been published.

For those trying to track the fiscal position this year, this is unlikely to be the last fiscal announcement that will move the dial. The government has indicated that further funding is likely to be made available later in the year to local government on top of the £2bn package announced last week. Rescue packages may also be needed for vulnerable sectors such as universities.

This article was originally published by ICAEW.

New funding package for English local authorities

2 July 2020: Secretary of State Robert Jenrick has announced a new £2bn package for English councils to replace lost income and cover spending pressures.

The government has announced additional funding for local authorities in England to help alleviate the financial pressures they are under. This follows on from our previous article on council funding pressures, which reported that total lost income and additional expenditure could amount to £9.4bn by next March.

The funding package announced today comprises £500m to cover incremental expenditures being incurred by councils – adding to the £3.2bn already provided – together with a reimbursement scheme covering up to 71% of lost income from sales, fees and charges.

The reimbursement scheme kicks in where losses are more than 5% of a council’s planned income from sales, fees and charges. The government will cover 75% of the lost income above 5%, meaning that councils will need to cover around 29% of the shortfall from their own resources. Depending on the final details, councils could receive somewhere in the order of £1.5bn and £2bn to replace lost income.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) also announced that councils would be able to phase repayments of council tax and business rates deficits over three years rather than one, reducing cashflow pressures on councils. However, the apportionment of irrecoverable council taxes and business rates will not be decided until the Spending Review in the autumn.

This announcement should significantly reduce the risk of councils needing to issue s114 ‘bankruptcy’ notices – for the next few months at least.

Commenting on the announcement Alison Ring, ICAEW Public Sector Director, said: “Although the new funding won’t cover all the expenditure and lost income councils have suffered due to coronavirus, it should be enough to help most get through the rest of the summer, and the prospects of some having to declare themselves bankrupt with s114 notices should recede for now. 

However, we’re concerned that councils will still have to cut back spending to cover the lost income from areas such as car parking, leisure centres, planning fees and other charges that are not being covered by central government. This has the potential to damage local economies just as they are trying to recover.”

This article was originally published by ICAEW.

Local authorities running out of money as COVID costs mount

2 July 2020: English councils have warned that £6bn more funding may be needed to keep operating through the rest of the financial year.

Data collected by the Ministry for Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) from 339 local authorities in England indicates that councils expect lost income and additional expenditure as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic to amount to a total of £9.4bn.

Many councils are warning that they may not be able to continue operating without further infusions of cash from central government. Although £3.2bn has been provided by central government to date, this has only covered lost income and additional expenditure incurred up to the end of May 2020, with councils forecasting a further impact of £6.2bn over the remainder of the financial year.

Table 1 – English local authorities: financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic

 March
2020
£bn		April & May
2020
£bn		Forecast to
March 2023
£bn
Total
£bn
Lost income  0.17 1.82 3.70 5.69
Additional expenditure 0.08 1.17 2.46 3.71
Total covid-19 impact 0.25 2.99 6.16 9.40

Source: Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, ‘Local authority COVID-19 financial impact monitoring information’.

Lost income is expected to reach in order of £5.7bn overall, while additional expenses are forecast to reach around £3.7bn. Further detail is provided in Table 2 and Table 3 below. 

With no additional funding as yet forthcoming, councils have been using their reserves to cover shortfalls during June. A number of local authorities are now discussing the possibility that that they may have to issue s114 ‘bankruptcy’ notices, which would require them to freeze all non-statutory expenditures, severely affecting local services.

The Chancellor is expected to announce further financial measures when he updates the nation next week and councils are hoping this will include more funding from central government in line with the encouragement they received at the outset of the lockdown to “do whatever it takes”.

Alison Ring, director for public sector at ICAEW, commented: “These numbers from English local authorities highlight just how severe the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic has been. The £3.2bn in additional funding from central government announced so far is only a third of the estimated total of £9.4bn in lost income and additional expenditure expected to be incurred.

There is a risk that without clarity on further funding that some councils will start issuing s114 ‘bankruptcy’ notices. This would significantly reduce spending by local authorities at the same time that local economies need every bit of help they can get if they are to fully recover.”

Table 2 – English local authorities: lost income

 March 2020
£bn		April & May 2020
£bn		Forecast to
March 2021
£bn
Total
£bn
Business rates  0.03 0.44 0.72 1.19
Council tax 0.02 0.48 1.21 1.71
Sales fees and charges 0.08 0.65 1.15 1.88
Commercial income 0.03 0.17 0.45 0.65
Other 0.01 0.08 0.17 0.26
Lost income 0.17 1.82 3.70 5.69

Source: Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, ‘Local authority COVID-19 financial impact monitoring information’.

Table 3 – English local authorities: additional expenditure

 March
2020
£bn		April & May 2020
£bn		Forecast to
March 2021
£bn
Total
£bn
Adult social care  0.03 0.50 0.97 0.50
Children’s social care 0.00 0.08 0.22 0.30
Housing (excluding HRA) 0.01 0.06 0.12 0.19
Environment and regulatory services 0.01 0.09 0.11 0.21
Finance & corporate services 0.01 0.08 0.11 0.20
Other service areas 0.02 0.36 0.93 1.31
Additional expenditure 0.08 1.17 2.46 3.71

Source: Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, ‘Local authority COVID-19 financial impact monitoring information’.

This article was originally published by ICAEW.

UK aircraft carrier groups won’t be operating to full extent until 2026

26 June 2020: NAO reports on challenges remaining to the Carrier Strike programme, including cost overruns since their last report in 2017.

The National Audit Office (NAO) has published the latest in a series of challenging reports on defence procurement with a critique of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) programme to establish two fully operational carrier strike groups.

This is a complex multi-year effort that has seen the building of the HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carriers at a cost of £6.4bn, the initial order of 48 fighter aircraft (out of a long-term plan for 138), and the planned integration of carriers, warships, radar systems and support ships with navy personnel into two fully combat capable carrier groups.

This report focuses on the last three years of development since 2017 – a period that has seen the Royal Navy complete and launch two new aircraft carriers, receive and test the initial batch of aircraft, construct essential on-shore infrastructure, and undertake extensive training of sailors and aircrew.

Key highlights from the report include:

  • There was a further cost overrun of £193m on building the two aircraft carriers, equivalent to 3% of their total cost of £6.4bn.
  • The MoD has spent £6.0bn to date on 48 Lightning II fighter jets, of which 18 have been delivered on schedule. Port and military airfield facilities have now been completed.
  • The Crowsnest airborne radar system is 18 months behind schedule, affecting carrier group capabilities in the first two years of operation.
  • The MoD delayed seven of its 48 jets on order to 2025 to accommodate budgetary pressures, with the approved cost now at £10.5bn, a £1.0bn or 15% increase.
  • Funding has not yet been made available for enough Lightning II jets to support the carriers through to the 2060s as planned, with no commitment as yet to order the remaining 90 jets.
  • The MoD has been slow to develop the support ships needed to operate carrier strike group, with only one ship currently in operation – with delays in ordering three new support ships potentially hampering operations until 2028 or later. The MoD has also not provided the necessary funding for logistics projects and munitions.

The NAO reports that the MoD is making progress in delivering key milestones, albeit with some caveats.

  • Initial operating capability for one carrier group and 12 jets is expected to be achieved by December 2020 on schedule, albeit with more basic radar capability than originally planned.
  • There is a tight schedule to deliver ‘full operating capability’ by 2023 (two carrier groups with up to 24 jets) and the planned extended capability by 2026 to deliver a wide range of air operations and support amphibious operations worldwide. 
  • Significant questions need to be answered about the place of the carrier groups within defence strategy, the investment prioritisation necessary to ensure that they can operate for the planned life-span of 50 years, and a clear understanding of the full costs of operating the carrier groups in the context of a Defence Equipment Plan that is currently unaffordable (as reported in several other NAO reports).

The NAO conclude by making a series of recommendations for strengthening programme management, ensuring there is a clear view of future costs, and on monitoring new governance arrangements that have recently been put in place. The NAO also recommends transferring lessons learned from the Carrier Strike programme over to other major defence projects.

Gareth Davies, the Comptroller & Auditor-General for the United Kingdom and the head of the NAO, commented on the good progress made by the MoD to deliver Carrier Strike. But he also stressed the need for greater attention to be paid to the supporting capabilities essential for full operability, and the need for the MoD to get a firmer grip on future costs.

Martin Wheatcroft FCA, advisor to ICAEW on public finances, said:

“In many ways, the MoD receives quite a positive report card from the NAO on the good progress that it has made over the last three years, improving on much less complementary reports in 2017 and before.

However, as the NAO reports, the MoD continues to struggle to deliver major procurement programmes within a defence budget that is unaffordable and there remain significant issues that need to be addressed. The extent to which further funding will be provided in the long-delayed Spending Review later this year is yet to be seen.”

The NAO report ‘Carrier Strike – Preparing for deployment’ is available on the NAO website.

This article was originally published on the ICAEW website.

Public debt exceeds 100% of GDP for first time since 1963

22 June 2020: The fiscal deficit of £103.7bn for April and May 2020 is over six times as large as the £16.7bn reported for the same period last year.

The latest public sector finances for May 2020 published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Friday 19 June 2020 reported a revised deficit of £48.5bn for April and a deficit of £55.2bn for May 2020.

Public sector net debt increased to £1,950.1bn or 100.9% of GDP, an increase of £173.2bn (up 20.5 percentage points) compared with April 2019. This is the first time the headline debt number has exceeded 100% of GDP since 1963, although the ONS cautions that the numbers for the deficit and for GDP are both subject to potentially significant revisions.

Table showing receipts, expenditure, net investment, deficit and public sector net debt. Details available on ICAEW article - click link at end of this post.

These results reflect the substantial fiscal interventions by the UK Government to support businesses and individuals affected by the coronavirus pandemic, together with a collapse in tax revenues as a consequence of the lockdown.

The deficit of £103.7bn for the two months to May is more than the budgeted deficit of £55bn for the whole of the 2020-21 financial year set in the Spring Budget in March.

Cash funding (aka the ‘public sector net cash requirement’) for the two months was £143.5bn, compared with £1.8bn for the same period in 2019.

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

Alison Ring, director of public sector for ICAEW, commented:

“Significant borrowing over recent months means that this is the first time in more than 50 years that debt has been larger than GDP. And though the furlough scheme to date has cost less than originally estimated, cash funding in April and May was more than in the previous three financial years combined.

These are major milestones for the public finances and demonstrate the unparalleled impact of coronavirus, even if this is not surprising given the huge amounts of financial support the government is providing to keep the economy going through lockdown.”

This article was originally published by ICAEW.