HM Treasury · Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses 2026, chapter 5: expenditure by sub-function
Spending on family benefits, income support and tax credits
£17.3bnmillion
Spending on family benefits, income support and tax credits was £17.3bn in the year ending March 2026, up 2.0% (£338m) from £17bn in the year ending March 2025.
▲ 2.0% · +£338m against Year ending March 2025 (previous period)
- HM Treasury count
- Year ending March 2026
- published 2 September 2026
- Table 5.2
- row “of which: family benefits, income support and tax credits”
- column “2025-26”
- cell value 17291
Year ending March 2021 to Year ending March 2026
What this measures
Public sector expenditure on services on family benefits, income support and tax credits, a component of social protection, in cash terms, from HM Treasury's PESA Table 5.2 (UN COFOG classification).
What this doesn’t measure
Spending by any single department or body: PESA classifies by the purpose of spending, not by who spends it.
Important caveat
PESA classifies spending by function using the UN COFOG framework, so "health" is every public body's spending on health services, not the Department of Health's budget, and "defence" follows COFOG rather than the NATO definition. Figures are outturn for the whole public sector including local government and public corporations. Cash figures rise with inflation; the real-terms table restates them at 2024-25 prices with the GDP deflator. Classification changes are footnoted in the table: student loans from 2011-12, Network Rail from 2011-12 and the treatment of EU transactions after 2020. Total managed expenditure includes accounting adjustments that are not allocated to any function.
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
- HM Treasury
- Publication
- Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses 2026, chapter 5: expenditure by sub-function
- Release
- 2026-09-02, published 2 September 2026
- Source file
- PESA_2026_CP_Chapter_5_tables.xlsx
- File SHA-256
- ccb4539bb837c2b6a7f9509da49bd409eb9e5a910f3332311b494291fbd33107
- Retrieved
- 4 September 2026
- Sheet
- 5_2
- Table
- Table 5.2
- Row
- of which: family benefits, income support and tax credits
- Column
- 2025-26
- Cell value
- 17291
- Geography
- United Kingdom
- Unit
- £ million
- API
- /api/metrics/spend_sub_family_benefits_income_support_and_tax_credits · /series · /vintages
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.
| Labour 2024– | £15.9bnYear ending March 2024 | £17.3bnYear ending March 2026 | ↑ 8.7% |
- Release
- 2026-09-02 · publication page
- Last updated
- 2 September 2026
- Next release expected
- Not yet announced (estimated from the usual cadence)