Publishing the UK Balance Sheet

[Anubis]

You know how it is; you watch the news and you read the papers quoting that the government are increasing funding by £xxx million and reducing £xxx million for some sectors. The problem is, these random quotes mean nothing to anyone other than the person holding the overall balance sheet for the UK - i.e. the government.

So...if thats the case, and to stop everyone getting in a fluster about "we shouldn't be spending this much money on defence but should be spending £xxx million on the NHS" type stuff - why has the UK government in this day and age NEVER publishes in a clear and consise format the UK balance sheets online?

These huge vast numbers sound stupidly daunting when quoted in the news, but in the grand scheme of things it may be a drop in the ocean compared to the overall "UKs bank balance". Yes - less money is bad news and more money is good; but overall how good or bad are things?

The MPs and Lords can easily hide huge sums of cash in dodgy stuff if no one but themselves can see the balance sheet, so why is no one prepared to publish it so a regular UK citizen can understand it clearly?

The other week the government said an extra £200m will be made available for just bin collections for councils and yet we are constantly reminded about being in a economic crises and everyone must pull together and pay taxes. Where does anyone suddenly get £200m from? What else aren't they telling us?

How can you actually know how economically sound the UK is unless the see the whole picture? I'm not one for conspiracy theories, however the UK could well be fine right now and yet so long as they keep saying "pay more tax, reduce spending" we will be like sheep doing what our masters tell us, no?

What do you think? Why hide a clear balance sheet for everyone to read in the UK?

As the saying goes - if you have nothing to hide then show all and prove it.

[Snoggledog]

All the info you could ever want can be found here:

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/2011budget.htm

It will take several years to wade through it but it's all there. HTH.

[robstvr]

Just me, or does Danny Alexander have a face you could punch all day?

[mrmr96]

Anubis said:

You know how it is; you watch the news and you read the papers quoting that the government are increasing funding by £xxx million and reducing £xxx million for some sectors. The problem is, these random quotes mean nothing to anyone other than the person holding the overall balance sheet for the UK - i.e. the government.

So...if thats the case, and to stop everyone getting in a fluster about "we shouldn't be spending this much money on defence but should be spending £xxx million on the NHS" type stuff - why has the UK government in this day and age NEVER publishes in a clear and consise format the UK balance sheets online?

These huge vast numbers sound stupidly daunting when quoted in the news, but in the grand scheme of things it may be a drop in the ocean compared to the overall "UKs bank balance". Yes - less money is bad news and more money is good; but overall how good or bad are things?

The MPs and Lords can easily hide huge sums of cash in dodgy stuff if no one but themselves can see the balance sheet, so why is no one prepared to publish it so a regular UK citizen can understand it clearly?

The other week the government said an extra £200m will be made available for just bin collections for councils and yet we are constantly reminded about being in a economic crises and everyone must pull together and pay taxes. Where does anyone suddenly get £200m from? What else aren't they telling us?

How can you actually know how economically sound the UK is unless the see the whole picture? I'm not one for conspiracy theories, however the UK could well be fine right now and yet so long as they keep saying "pay more tax, reduce spending" we will be like sheep doing what our masters tell us, no?

What do you think? Why hide a clear balance sheet for everyone to read in the UK?

As the saying goes - if you have nothing to hide then show all and prove it.

Do you mean balance sheet or P&L? (Or indeed both?)

[0a]

I think there is a case for publishing this data in an easy to understand, attractive nature rather than the link above.

[ninja-lewis]

For all the Guardian's faults, they do a nice line in Data reporting on their Datablog.

To see how much money each department gets and the main areas they spend it for 2010-11:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/oct/2...

Some of the information is from departmental accounts but as they mentioned sometimes they had to get Press Officers to track the information for them because it either wasn't in the accounts or was in a different format to other departments.

The problem is that to very recently, the Government simply hasn't this sort of information in this format. The Treasury has spent the past 10 years working towards developing consolidated Whole of Government Accounts (based on International Financing Reporting Standards). The first accounts are due to be published sometime in the next year but there's a summary here for 09-10, complete with the equivalent of an Income Statement and Balance Sheet:
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/wga_unaudited_summ...

Guardian Datablog articles about WGA:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jul/1... (actual data)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jul/1... (History)

[Vytalis]

Skimming that, it seems that the 2010 deficit could be wiped out entirely by defaulting on public sector pensions...

[jj333]

Local and central government have been completing whole of government accounts returns for a couple of years but I imagine the figures coming through from the nationalised banks would skew the numbers completely.