How Big Is The Public Sector?

[Pauly_Boy]

How big is the public sector?

I remember there was a program on Channel 4 or BBC2 about 2 months ago going on about government spending. If I remember correctly the public represented aboyt 39% of the economy in 1997 but it's now 55-57%, but I can't find any links proving this. Does anyone have anything or a link to confirm this?

[Patfig]

How big is the public sector?

I remember there was a program on Channel 4 or BBC2 about 2 months ago going on about government spending. If I remember correctly the public represented aboyt 39% of the economy in 1997 but it's now 55-57%, but I can't find any links proving this. Does anyone have anything or a link to confirm this?

It is not as big as it was last week

[Lepista]

How big is the public sector?

I remember there was a program on Channel 4 or BBC2 about 2 months ago going on about government spending. If I remember correctly the public represented aboyt 39% of the economy in 1997 but it's now 55-57%, but I can't find any links proving this. Does anyone have anything or a link to confirm this?

If you can imagine a cube 57 feet on each side... It's about that big.

[SHERWICK]

If you can imagine a cube 57 feet on each side... It's about that big.

[Bloo Loo]

Too.

[beccles]

Half the military are run by Serco, I think they even have Serco pilots ffs, do they count as public sector?

[Pauly_Boy]

Half the military are run by Serco, I think they even have Serco pilots ffs, do they count as public sector?

Probably, but can anyone find a number.

We all know that Wales is reliant upon govenment spending, can anyone find the numbers for the country as a whole?

[the_fluid]

Mine spent £23,414,496.56 in January alone - that's quite big

What does your council spend a month?

[Timak]

How big is the public sector?

I remember there was a program on Channel 4 or BBC2 about 2 months ago going on about government spending. If I remember correctly the public represented aboyt 39% of the economy in 1997 but it's now 55-57%, but I can't find any links proving this. Does anyone have anything or a link to confirm this?

Almost impossible to say.

http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/downchart_ukgs.php?year=1900_2010&state=UK&view=1&expand=&units=p&fy=2010&chart=F0-total&bar=0&stack=1&size=1419_704&color=c&title=UK%20Public%20Spending%20As%20Percent%20Of%20GDP&show=

This graph shows that any right wing fantasies about government spending running wild under Labour compared to dear old Maggie aren't that accurate.

But then again it doesn't take into account PFI and other off balance sheet activities so I can't say it is that accurate.

And then we have to take into account how we deal with outsourced work. I'm private sector / self employed but doing my accounts show 80% of my money came from public sector organisations last year so what am I classified as?

[interestrateripoff]

The question needs a bit of revision you also need to work out how reliant the private sector is on public sector spending.

How many cafe's, newsagents etc... rely on public sector workers going in them?

[eejit]

Half the military are run by Serco, I think they even have Serco pilots ffs, do they count as public sector?

serco do prisons and immigration camps too. the dockland railway, and also they extract profit from "managing education authorities"

[Tired of Waiting]

How big is the public sector?

I remember there was a program on Channel 4 or BBC2 about 2 months ago going on about government spending. If I remember correctly the public represented aboyt 39% of the economy in 1997 but it's now 55-57%, but I can't find any links proving this. Does anyone have anything or a link to confirm this?

Those HMRC pie-charts show a total expenditure of just over £700bn. It will be easy to find total GDP on Google. IIRC, it is around twice that. If so, yep, around 50%.

EDIT: Those HMRC numbers, do they include local governments?

Edited February 17, 2011 by Tired of Waiting

[Tired of Waiting]

How big is the public sector?

I've found it:

http://www.economist.com/node/15328727

[SHERWICK]

I've found it:

http://www.economist.com/node/15328727

HOORAY! We're almost First!!

[Goat]

This graph shows that any right wing fantasies about government spending running wild under Labour compared to dear old Maggie aren't that accurate.

Really?

That chart shows that at the end of Thathers reign it was less than 35% of GDP and was at just over that amount when Major left office.

By 2010 Labour had managed to push that figure up to 45% of GDP.

Now maybe you dont consider 10% of GDP to be significant number but I think most people would.

Edited February 17, 2011 by Goat

[Timak]

Really?

That chart shows that at the end of Thathers reign it was less than 35% of GDP and was at just over that amount when Major left office.

By 2010 Labour had managed to push that figure up to 45% of GDP.

Now maybe you dont consider 10% of GDP to be significant number but I think most people would.

In 2010 we'd just "had" to rescue a deregulated financial system - if you look at New Labour's time in office it is fairly similar to the spending under the Tories.

The only difference being now we have decent public services rather than the crumbling legacy of Thatcherism.

[Goat]

In 2010 we'd just "had" to rescue a deregulated financial system - if you look at New Labour's time in office it is fairly similar to the spending under the Tories.

The only difference being now we have decent public services rather than the crumbling legacy of Thatcherism.

Are we looking at the same chart?

It shows a steady fall of 10% of GDP across Thatchers time, a blip in the middle of Major's time that had reversed by 1997 then a steady upward rise since 2000.

The rate of increase accelerated in 2007 (partly) due to the recession but since that was the result of the credit bubble popping all you're saying there is that the earlier profilgacy was masked by the credit bubble.

The banking bail outs of course are not reflected in the chart, since they count as investments and loans and not expenditure.

[northwestsmith2]

The public sector is mostly London, that's where the money goes.

[Hyperduck Quack Quack]

The public sector is mostly London, that's where the money goes.

Nonsense!

Like, nowhere else has public services, hospitals, roads, street lights, bin men. schools, police forces military bases etc. etc.?

London takes about £65 billion of UK's £661 billion public spending - about 10%. London has about 12% of UK's population, so by that it has slightly less public spending per head than UK as a whole.

Edited February 17, 2011 by Hyperduck Quack Quack

[northwestsmith2]

Nonsense!

Like, nowhere else has public services, hospitals, roads, street lights, bin men. schools, police forces military bases etc. etc.?

London takes about £65 billion of UK's £661 billion public spending - about 10%. London has about 12% of UK's population, so by that it has slightly less public spending per head than UK as a whole.

What is the "public spending" figure based on, those in employment by the public sector ?, the subsidies in transport?

London is a drain on the country. look at benefits, unemployment, employment, economic inactivity & activity.

London is number one for unemployment, benefits, inactivity and general failure.

London drains from the state, and gives debt back

It has a square mile of betting shops , a dab of culture and the rest is a diseased animal trying to grab from the table but failing.

Put it down, end it's life and never mind the vet's bills it was suffering badly 10 years ago.

Stand on me.

[FreeTrader]

In the UK national accounts on an expenditure approach, general government spending forms approximately 26% of GDP. In the US it’s less than this, something like 21% if I recall.

Looking at total government spending as a proportion of GDP isn’t how the national statisticians do it (in any country). This is because spending such as social security payments, state pensions etc. are considered ‘transfer payments’ (i.e. a redistribution of income). They are not directly associated with output.

Interest paid on the national debt is also ignored. Again it doesn’t relate to output.

[Van]

In 2010 we'd just "had" to rescue a deregulated financial system - if you look at New Labour's time in office it is fairly similar to the spending under the Tories.

The only difference being now we have decent public services rather than the crumbling legacy of Thatcherism.

ROTFL.

[Riedquat]

What is the "public spending" figure based on, those in employment by the public sector ?, the subsidies in transport?

London is a drain on the country. look at benefits, unemployment, employment, economic inactivity & activity.

London is number one for unemployment, benefits, inactivity and general failure.

London drains from the state, and gives debt back

It has a square mile of betting shops , a dab of culture and the rest is a diseased animal trying to grab from the table but failing.

Put it down, end it's life and never mind the vet's bills it was suffering badly 10 years ago.

Stand on me.

How's any of that any different from any other city in the UK? Most of them are godforsaken dumps. London just happens to be bigger than the others. I doubt it's numbers of failures per head are much different from anywhere else.

[Tired of Waiting]

Are we looking at the same chart?

It shows a steady fall of 10% of GDP across Thatchers time, a blip in the middle of Major's time that had reversed by 1997 then a steady upward rise since 2000.

The rate of increase accelerated in 2007 (partly) due to the recession but since that was the result of the credit bubble popping all you're saying there is that the earlier profilgacy was masked by the credit bubble.

The banking bail outs of course are not reflected in the chart, since they count as investments and loans and not expenditure.

+ 1

And it kept falling from 1997-2000 just because Brown kept his pre-election promise to keep Tory's spending plans for the first 3 years.