OBR · Historical official forecasts database
Spending forecasts, £ billion
£1.29tnbillion
Spending forecasts, £ billion was £1.29tn in the year ending March 2025, up 5.0% (£61bn) from £1.23tn in the year ending March 2024.
▲ 5.0% · +£61bn against Year ending March 2024 (previous period)
- OBR count
- Year ending March 2025
- published 26 March 2026
- £TME
- row “Outturn data*”
- column “2024-25”
- cell value 1291.7859999999998
Year ending March 2025 is the highest figure in the published series: £1.29tn. Rule: highest of the 36 periods published here (Year ending March 1990 to Year ending March 2025).
Year ending March 1990 to Year ending March 2025
What this measures
Total managed expenditure in cash terms: the outturn as the OBR last knew it, with every official forecast for the same year.
What this doesn’t measure
Spending on any single service, or spending in real terms.
Important caveat
Each forecast vintage uses the definitions and classifications in force when it was made, so the outturn the OBR shows beside it may differ from today's ONS series after later classification changes and revisions. The outturn row is the figure as the OBR knew it at its most recent forecast, not the latest ONS estimate. Forecasts before June 2010 were produced by HM Treasury, not the OBR. Fiscal series are financial years; economy series are calendar years. A forecast is a statement of uncertainty made at the time and is stored as an estimate; a miss is not evidence of misconduct.
Revision history
No period of this series has been revised since it was first ingested here. Revisions are recorded automatically when a later release publishes a different figure for the same period.
Source
- Publisher
- OBR
- Publication
- Historical official forecasts database
- Release
- Historical official forecasts database, March 2026, published 26 March 2026
- Source file
- obr-historical-forecasts-2026-03.xlsx
- File SHA-256
- e00b17cb7ec8dfddc4bfd4d212c1e93362147fff81d74a10480e599b26e634db
- Retrieved
- 3 September 2026
- Sheet
- £TME
- Table
- £TME
- Row
- Outturn data*
- Column
- 2024-25
- Cell value
- 1291.7859999999998
- Geography
- United Kingdom
- Unit
- £ billion
- API
- /api/metrics/obr_forecast_tme · /series · /vintages
Related metrics
Government periods
Change during each government, from the level inherited to the last complete period before it left office. Describes the period; does not attribute cause.
| Conservative 2019–2024 | £856bnYear ending March 2019 | £1.23tnYear ending March 2024 | ↑ 43.8% |
| Conservative 2017–2019 | £811.4bnYear ending March 2017 | £856bnYear ending March 2019 | ↑ 5.5% |
| Conservative 2015–2017 | £786.1bnYear ending March 2015 | £811.4bnYear ending March 2017 | ↑ 3.2% |
| Coalition 2010–2015 | £720.3bnYear ending March 2010 | £786.1bnYear ending March 2015 | ↑ 9.1% |
| Labour 2005–2010 | £534.9bnYear ending March 2005 | £720.3bnYear ending March 2010 | ↑ 34.7% |
| Labour 2001–2005 | £390.1bnYear ending March 2001 | £534.9bnYear ending March 2005 | ↑ 37.1% |
| Labour 1997–2001 | £328.2bnYear ending March 1997 | £390.1bnYear ending March 2001 | ↑ 18.9% |
| Conservative 1992–1997 | £263.2bnYear ending March 1992 | £328.2bnYear ending March 1997 | ↑ 24.7% |
- Release
- Historical official forecasts database, March 2026 · publication page
- Last updated
- 26 March 2026
- Next release expected
- Not yet announced (estimated from the usual cadence)