In this forecast, we switched to using spending data from a new source, which was the Treasury’s new public spending database known as OSCAR (short for their ‘Online System for Central Accounting and Reporting’). This led to some switches between DEL and AME, which we treated as classification changes, because they affected our presentation of DEL and AME for all years, including outturn and forecasts. This box explained those changes.
For this forecast, we have used departments’ plans data for TME in DEL, which underlie the plans data set out in Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses (PESA) 2013, and in PESA 2013: Update for 2015-16. PESA data are now held on the Treasury’s new spending database, which is their Online System for Central Accounting and Reporting, known as OSCAR. This is the first time that we have used data from OSCAR for our forecasts. Our forecasts for TME in DEL have changed to reflect improvements in the classification of some DEL data on OSCAR. Most of the changes correct the classification of EU-related spending, which is not scored as public expenditure in the National Accounts. The changes only have a very marginal effect on our forecast of TME as a whole, because most of the classification changes in DEL remove the need for accounting adjustments that corrected the classification of the previous DEL data. The changes to TME in DEL are therefore largely offset by changes to accounting adjustments in AME, as shown in Table E.
Table E: OSCAR classification changes in DEL and AME
