Fun With Numbers - The April 2013 Public sector deficit

From The ONS:

• Public sector current budget deficit was £5.6 billion in April 2013; this is a £2.5 billion lower deficit than in April 2012, when there was a deficit of £8.2 billion.(1)

• Public sector net borrowing (PSNB ex) was £6.3 billion in April 2013; this is £25.4 billion higher net borrowing than in April 2012, when net borrowing was £-19.1 billion.(2)

• After removing the impacts of the transfer relating to the BEAPFF(3), public sector net borrowing in April 2013 was £10.2 billion(4); this is £1.3 billion higher net borrowing than the figure in April 2012 (5) with the impacts of the Royal Mail pension transfer removed. However, also removing the effect of the SLS transfer (7) from April 2012 results in April 2013 being £1.0 billion lower than in April 2012.(7)

• Public sector net debt was £1,185.3 billion at the end of April 2013, equivalent to 75.2% of gross domestic product (GDP).

1) Hooray! Sort of.

2) Wow! A negative deficit means that wee Georgie boy actually paid off £19.1 billion of the accumulated public sector debt! Not bad going for a towel folder!

3) BEAPFF = Bank of England Asset Purchase Facility Fund = the entries in the Bank of England's accounts relating to QE.

4) This means that the monthly public sector deficit was reduced by £4.6 billion as a result of this entry. But the Bank of England is part of the public sector, so that £4.2 billion is completely made-up (unless they also included £4.2 billion interest "payable" on the government bonds held by the government as an expense?).

5) Oo-er.

6) Just to remind ourselves of what was reported a year ago:

Comparisons for April [2012] are affected by a number of factors: The April 2012 net borrowing was reduced by £28.0 billion as a result of the transfer of the Royal Mail Pension Plan. Also in April 2012, £2.3 billion was transferred from the Bank of England to HM Treasury following the winding up of the Special Liquidity Scheme (SLS). In April 2013, £3.9 billion was transferred from the Bank of England Asset Purchase Facility Fund (BEAPFF) to Government. All these transfers to government have the effect of reducing public sector net borrowing (PSNB ex), central government net cash requirement and public sector net debt (PSND ex).

The Royal Mail pension fund was more smoke and mirrors. BobE adds in the comments that it was reported back in March 2012 thusly:

Mr Osborne told MPs: “The transfer of the £28 billion of assets from the Royal Mail pension fund to the Exchequer will free it from its crippling pension debts, ensure the pensions of hard-working staff are paid and help to bring in new private sector investment” and "A further £37.5 billion of liabilities will be absorbed into the rest of the state pension system and so will not immediately show on the Government books as debt".

Or in brief - HMT received approx £28 billion up front and spent it immediately, in return for guaranteeing what was at the time set as at least £37.5 billion in debt, in order to make the Royal Mail more saleable from a privatisation viewpoint.

An medja person reporting the H of C statement by the Oik supplied the "missing element info" as a public service..."The £9.5 billion difference between the two figures is the same as adding £365 of debt to every British household".

7) Ah right. So in real real terms, the deficit, i.e. the additional borrowing was £1 billion lower than a year ago? If we keep this up, the accumulated deficit will stop growing in about ten year's time or something.