By Richard Johnstone | 22 May 2014
Underlying government borrowing in 2013/14 has been revised down by £300m, the Office for National Statistics has said, but borrowing in the first month of the new financial year was up by £1.7bn compared to 12 months ago.
According to the latest figures, borrowing once one-off payments to the Treasury were removed stood at £107.4bn last year, with a downward revision coming as a result of more up-to-date full year spending data from Whitehall departments.
Overall, £31.1bn was transferred from the Bank of England’s Asset Purchase Facility Fund to the Treasury over the 12 months, of which £12.2bn was used to cut net borrowing.
In April, borrowing, excluding these payments, stood at £11.5bn, more than £1.9bn higher in the same month in 2013. This was mainly due to higher local government borrowing in the month, which was up by £1.6bn.
The Office for Budget Responsibility said a slight fall in central government receipts also contributed to April’s higher borrowing. However it highlighted that the local authority borrowing figures in the first month of the year were volatile and prone to revision, so this increase was unlikely to provide a guide to the year as a whole.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies added the fall inreceipts was likely due to weak receipts of income and capital gains tax.
Soumaya Keynes, a research economist at the IFS, said: ‘Today’s figures leave estimates of last year’s borrowing little changed; borrowing in April 2014 is estimated to be about £2bn higher than in April last year.
‘However, the higher level of borrowing this April compared to last is at least in part explained by receipts last April having been artificially boosted by people shifting their income to avoid the 50p rate of tax that applied until the end of March 2013.’
