Where the numbers come from

Every figure used in the dashboard and the budget game, with its source and how it was worked out. All figures are for the 2025/26 financial year unless stated, and are in cash terms. Where an official figure doesn't exist yet, the page says so rather than hiding the gap.

OfficialPublished outturn or forecast, used as-is.
DerivedCalculated from published figures, for example one total minus another.
EstimateNo published 2025/26 figure: based on earlier years, growth rates or typical shares.
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Headline totals

The four numbers at the top of the dashboard, and the starting point of the game.

Income

The 12 slices of the income doughnut and what sits inside them.

Spending

The 12 spending areas and their drill-downs.

Other charts and the game

Year comparisons, departmental budgets and the costs used in "What might this mean?".

The publications

Everything above traces back to these.

    How the figures were put together

    Why some lines are estimates

    HM Treasury publishes spending by function with a lag, and only the largest areas have confirmed 2025/26 figures. Smaller areas such as defence, police, housing, environment and culture are carried forward from 2024/25 outturn using the growth rates the Treasury has published. Sub-lines within each area mostly use the proportions from the most recent year where the detail exists.

    The reconciling lines

    Two lines exist to make the totals add up honestly rather than to describe a real budget:

    • "Other & accounting adjustments" (£132bn of spending) is the gap between spending on named services and total managed expenditure. It covers items like public-sector pension accounting, depreciation and spending by public corporations.
    • "Other taxes" (about £100bn) is what's left of the tax take after the taxes shown separately. The named items inside it are real, but the final "everything else" line absorbs the difference, so year-to-year movements in it aren't meaningful.

    Rounding

    Figures are rounded, so slices may not sum to exactly the total shown. Percentages are worked out before rounding. Per-person figures use a population of about 69.5 million; per-household figures use about 28.6 million households.

    Cash terms, not real terms

    Nothing is adjusted for inflation. In the three-year comparison, prices rose roughly 8% over the two years to 2025/26, so part of the growth shown is inflation rather than a real increase.

    What the game simplifies

    The game treats every cut as an immediate, full-year saving. In reality some spending is fixed by law or contract, savings take time to appear, and cuts can have knock-on effects: fewer public-sector jobs mean less income tax and more benefit claims, and delayed maintenance can cost more later. Debt interest and accounting adjustments are locked because a government can't choose to pay less of them.

    Dates

    Compiled in September 2026, using data published up to that point. The next Budget is due on 28 October 2026 and will change the forecasts. The 2025/26 outturn figures may also be revised as the ONS and HM Treasury update their statistics.