Public sector receipts, expenditure, net borrowing, and net debt

FOI reference: FOI-2026-3439

You asked

I request the following information relating to the financial year 2020 to 2021.

I am seeking the statistical reconciliation or "bridge" used by the ONS to move from:

• Public sector current receipts

• Total Managed Expenditure (TME) or total public sector expenditure

• to

• Public Sector Net Borrowing (PSNB ex)

Specifically, please provide:

1. Any reconciliation table, internal working paper, statistical bridge, or published dataset that shows how total expenditure and receipts are adjusted to derive the official PSNB figure for 2020 to 2021.

2. A breakdown of the adjustments applied between:

   a. Total Managed Expenditure (or equivalent total spending measure), and

   b. Public Sector Net Borrowing (PSNB ex)

Including but not limited to:

• Financial transactions excluded from borrowing

• Capital vs current adjustments

• Depreciation treatment

• Loan guarantees and COVID loan schemes

• Bank of England Asset Purchase Facility (APF) effects

• Reclassifications under ESA10

• Any stock-flow adjustments relevant to 2020 to 2021

Please provide clarification on whether ONS produces a formal reconciliation table linking: Receipts → Expenditure → Net Borrowing → Net Debt for financial year 2020 to 2021.

If such reconciliation is already publicly available, please provide the precise document name, dataset title, and table number or page reference.

We said

Thank you for your request, which we interpret as seeking more information about the relationship between public sector receipts, expenditure, net borrowing, and net debt.  

We publish relevant tables alongside our monthly public sector finances release and the associated tables are found by selecting "View all data used in this statistical bulletin" which appears in a green box on the right-hand side of the page.

Please also refer to the associated downloads, providing relevant published data for the period requested, namely the financial year 2020-21 (April 2020 to March 2021 inclusive). We have highlighted the most relevant lines. If needed, other periods can be selected by following the links below. These extracts are taken from our release as published on 20 March 2026. 

To explain further:  

• Our published table Public sector finances borrowing by sub-sector: Appendix R shows how net borrowing is derived from receipts and expenditure.  

• The relationship is net borrowing = current receipts -- total managed expenditure.  

• The "Notes" sheet sets out the calculations, and the "Matrix" sheet shows the data for the period you select in cell B4 (of a live version). In the extract attached, I have selected the financial year 2020-21. The columns of the "Matrix" sheet show the subsectors and our headline public sector figures are shown in column H.  

• Appendix R presents a high-level reconciliation of public sector receipts, expenditure and borrowing. It also reconciles net borrowing and net cash requirement.  

• Unfortunately, we do not reconcile these with public sector net debt. However, within Public sector finances tables 1 to 10: Appendix A (extract included), table "REC3" reconciles central government net cash requirement with changes in central government net debt. We do not hold any other reconciliation tables.  

• Our estimates of central government net cash requirement are available in tables PSA7C and D, highlighted in the attached Appendix A extract.

• Transactions related to the Bank of England Asset Purchase Facility Fund (APF) are recorded in Tables PSA6B_1 (APF interest payments paid to central government), PSA6F (central government payments to APF), PSA9B (APF interest receipts and payments) and finally PSA9A (as a component of public sector net debt). Again, these have been highlighted in the Appendix A extract. 

If you need more information, our public sector finances team can be contacted via this email address: public.sector.inquiries@ons.gov.uk