FOI reference: FOI-2025-3125
You asked
Under the Freedom of Information Act I request a summary of the annual UK Government spending across the main categories or spend, being the likes of:
- Public sector pensions
- NHS
- Welfare (excluding immigration control)
- Immigration control and associated welfare
- Schools and education (inc apprenticeships)
- Justice (inc prisons, courts, police and associated administration)
- Business (inc government subsidies)
- Green agenda and Net Zero
- Councils
- Borrowing costs
I would like to see the total annual government spend of monies raised either through taxation of raising capital by other means (selling of Bonds and the like) split into say 10 to 15 of the key spend areas.
We said
Thank you for your request seeking a summary of the annual UK Government spending across around 10 to 15 categories, and for also providing a possible list of categories to explain your request.
While we hold some information with breakdowns like those you request, we do not hold the information according to the exact list of categories you supplied.
We compile data for spending by the government sector in the UK. The datasets are available for each of central government, local government, and general government (the total).
The breakdown of expenditure by function uses internationally comparable definitions of 10 broad categories (examples are Health, Education, Defence), known as the Classification of functions of government (COFOG) classification.
The datasets also show different types of expenditure, also according to international statistical definitions. Data are provided for calendar years from 1995 onwards, and the latest available data are for 2023, published in May 2025.
These datasets show the kinds of expenditure you listed as numbers 2 to 8, though with different category definitions. Spending by councils (9 on your list) is represented by the Local Government dataset. For borrowing costs (10 on your list), please refer to the column labelled "Property income D4" in either the General Government or Central Government dataset. You also suggested "public sector pensions" as a possible category of spending (1 on your list). If you are interested in spending on state pension payments, that would be included within the column labelled "Social benefits other than social transfers in kind D62" and the row labelled "GF1002-Old Age".
These datasets are:
- our Central government annual expenditure: ESA Table 11 dataset
- our Local government annual expenditure: ESA Table 11 dataset
- our General government annual expenditure: ESA Table 11 dataset
For descriptions of the function categories, see the What is Cofog? section of the United Nations Statistics Division's (UNSD's) Classification of the functions of government webpage.
If you have questions about our datasets, please email the Office for National Statistics (ONS) at public.sector.inquiries@ons.gov.uk.
Information published by HM Treasury
HM Treasury (HMT) publishes a similar breakdown of data, broken down by function, for financial years.
Please see Chapter 5 (and tables) of HMT's Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses publication.
If you have questions about the Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses publication, please email HM Treasury at pesa@hmtreasury.gov.uk.