22OCT

ONS revision halves the £8.1bn overshoot

2 min read

16:23UTC

The ONS cut April to August borrowing by £4.0bn to £73.3bn, leaving it about £4.1bn over the OBR's profile, not the £8.1bn Lowdown led on. With September added, the half-year overshoot is £6.0bn.

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EconomicAssessed

Key takeaway

Revised ONS data halve the April-August overshoot, and the half-year miss is now £6.0bn.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) cut its estimate of public sector borrowing for April to August by £4.0bn, to £73.3bn, in its 21 October bulletin⁠¹. Lowdown led its last briefing on an £8.1bn overshoot for those five months against the path set by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the official forecaster.

On the revised data, April to August ran about £4.1bn over the OBR's £69.2bn profile on Lowdown's arithmetic, half the overshoot we led on. September's £1.9bn miss then takes April to September to £97.8bn, which is £6.0bn above the OBR's £91.8bn forecast⁠².

The overshoot is real, and on the revised data the five months we led on ran about half as far over as we reported. The ONS revises first estimates as fuller tax and spending data arrive, so September's own figures will move too. A £6.0bn half-year miss still eats into the government's headroom, the margin by which it expects to meet its own borrowing rule, ahead of the 28 October Budget.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Every month the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the government's statistics body, estimates how much the state borrowed. Its first figures are partly guesses, because some councils and tax payments have not yet reported. In September the ONS said borrowing from April to August was £8.1bn more than the official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), had expected. Lowdown reported that as its lead story. Now the ONS has corrected those months down by £4.0bn. The overshoot for those five months is about £4.1bn, roughly half what was first reported. Borrowing is still running above plan, but by less than the first estimate suggested.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

The ONS publishes borrowing about three weeks after each month ends. For several items, including parts of local government spending and some tax receipts, it starts from budgets and forecasts, then replaces them as actual returns arrive.

The OBR builds its monthly profile from an annual forecast: it splits an annual forecast across months using past patterns, so a timing shift in when a tax is paid can look like an overshoot for months before it reverses.

What could happen next?

Meaning
The early-year overshoot was about half the size first reported, so headroom erosion from borrowing alone is smaller than September's figures implied.
Immediate · Assessed
Risk
Revisions can run either way, so the £6.0bn half-year overshoot could still grow when receipts data for the autumn arrive.
Short term · Suggested
Precedent
Monthly borrowing headlines should be read as provisional until at least one further revision has landed.
Long term · Assessed

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: In 2013 the ONS revised its GDP figures and erased the double-dip recession it had first reported for 2012. A narrative built on first estimates dissolved once fuller data arrived, the same mechanism behind this borrowing revision.

Counter-parallel: In October 2009 Greece's incoming government revised its deficit forecast for that year to 12.5% of GDP, from the 3.7% it had reported that spring. That revision ran the other way and triggered a debt crisis, because the first figures had hidden the problem rather than overstating it.

Immediate: the revised £73.3bn for April to August narrows the gap with the OBR's £69.2bn profile to about £4.1bn on Lowdown's arithmetic. September's £1.9bn miss lifts the half-year gap to £6.0bn against the £91.8bn forecast.

Structural: a £6.0bn half-year overshoot, if repeated in the second half, would put full-year borrowing about £12bn above plan. That sits close to the lowest headroom estimates relayed before the Budget, which is why the revision changes the tone of the Budget arithmetic without removing the pressure.

Consensus view: Before the revision, the Institute for Government said the OBR forecast had likely deteriorated since March, and the broker Saxo estimated the roughly £24bn of headroom left by the previous Chancellor had at least halved. Both readings treated the early-year overshoot as a trend.

Counter-view: The OBR's own monthly commentaries warn that in-year comparisons with its profile are a weak guide, because tax receipts and spending land unevenly through the year. A £4.0bn revision inside one month supports that caution, and shows how much of the August alarm came from estimated rather than counted cash.

Key tension: Whether the remaining £6.0bn half-year overshoot is the real underlying drift, or whether later revisions will shrink it again before the year closes.

Sources:Office for National Statistics

Mentions:Office for National Statistics →Office for Budget Responsibility →Institute for Government →Greece →

First Reported In

Update #5 · Debt passes £3trn, its ratio below forecast

Office for National Statistics· 22 Oct 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

ONS puts borrowing £8.1bn over OBR path

The 21 October bulletin revised down the April to August borrowing that the 22 September bulletin first reported.

Occurred 22 Sept 2026

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This Event

ONS revision halves the £8.1bn overshoot

The overshoot Lowdown led on was real but about half the size, and the half-year miss now stands at £6.0bn.

Different Perspectives

Pension Protection Fund

Acting chief actuary Aaron Pang put the rise to 135.0% funded down to liabilities falling 2.1% against a 1.0% fall in assets, reflecting higher gilt yields. On Lowdown's reading, the yields that lift the Treasury's interest bill leave 4,838 company schemes with a £280.7bn surplus that does not reduce state borrowing.

Torsten Bell

The Labour figure wrote on 14 October that the IMF's October figures show the fastest fiscal consolidation in the G7. The IMF forecasts the UK deficit falling from 3.8% of GDP in 2026 to 1.4% in 2031, a squeeze still to be delivered through taxes and spending.

Tax Justice UK

The left-leaning campaign group says ten tax reforms would raise over £60bn a year for public services, and on 22 October asked why higher taxes on extreme wealth remain politically difficult. It offers the tax-led exit to the IEA's cuts; the £60bn is its own claim, not an official costing.

Institute of Economic Affairs

The free-market think tank's Alternative Budget of 19 October would suspend the state pension triple lock for three years, freeze welfare in cash terms and move tax onto a wider VAT. It claims the day-to-day budget returns to surplus in 2027-28, its own projection rather than an official costing.

Resolution Foundation

The living-standards think tank said welfare spending ran about £2.5bn above expectations in September, City AM reported on 21 October, and its economist Greg Thwaites urged targeted energy support. Its figure lands as a Chancellor who calls welfare cuts a moral duty finalises the 28 October Budget.

Institute for Fiscal Studies

Director Helen Miller said a steady-as-she-goes Budget is not an option, with the IFS putting 2029-30 headroom at about £20bn, The Independent reported on 12 October. The IFS puts the cost of avoiding cuts and funding higher defence at around £35bn of tax rises or benefit cuts, more than any headroom estimate in circulation.

Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.