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The Office for National Statistics has revised down UK government borrowing figures for the current fiscal year by £2bn following an error in the tax receipts used to calculate the data, in another setback for the beleaguered agency.
The ONS said on Wednesday that HM Revenue & Customs had alerted it to inaccuracies in VAT receipts the statistics agency relied on for its estimates for government borrowing published on September 19.
As a result of the errors, which cover the period from January to August this year, the ONS cut its estimate for government borrowing for the current fiscal year, which began in April, by £2bn. It also reduced the borrowing figure for the previous fiscal year by £1bn.
The disclosure of errors in another critical set of economic statistics will ratchet up the pressure on the ONS.
The statistics agency has been under fire from politicians and the Bank of England because of a series of problems with its economic statistics, making it harder for policymakers to take decisions about how to steer the economy.
It overestimated April’s inflation figures and in August had to postpone the release of monthly retail sales data.
The latest blunder comes just weeks before chancellor Rachel Reeves is due to deliver a high-stakes Budget, when she is widely expected to raise taxes to plug a hole in the public finances.
Correcting for the errors, the ONS said borrowing for the fiscal year to August was £81.8bn, down from the £83.8bn initially reported in its September 19 release.
The total is still above the £72.4bn forecast for the period by the Office for Budget Responsibility, the UK’s official fiscal watchdog.
HMRC said on Wednesday that it had identified an error in our VAT cash receipts”, without giving further details.
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