Wednesday 25 November 2009

Public Spending in the UK


The Guardian have been doing some interesting things with data over the past couple of years, including setting up their data store. One of the most interesting visualisations they have produced relates to public spending in the UK. The most recent version of this graphic (produced in conjunction with the Institute for Fiscal Studies), for 2008-09 reveals some interesting things...

  • Total spending was £620.685 billion, up 7% on the previous year
  • Department for Work and Pensions (state pensions, housing benefit, etc.) spending was £135.7 billion
  • £94.552 billion was spent on the NHS
  • Interest payments on debt were £24.1 billion
  • 'Financial stability' measures (i.e. bailing out the banks) was £85.5 billion
  • More money was spent bailing out LTSB and RBS (£36.9 billion) than on the Department for Communities and Local Government (£36.8 billion)
  • DCLG spending for local and regional government was £25.4 billion
There's a fully fledged article on all this, and links to the downloadable pdf on the Guardian pages relating to this analysis. There's also a related flickr page for visualisations.