Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland 2010-2011

E GLOSSARY

Accounting Adjustment: the adjustment required to reconcile Total Expenditure on Services (TES) provided in PESA with Total Managed Expenditure (TME), the principal measure of public sector expenditure in UK public finance publications. The largest element of the accounting adjustment is capital consumption.

Accruals: the accounting convention whereby an expenditure or revenue is recorded (recognised) at the time when it has been incurred or earned rather than when the money is paid or received.

Aggregate External Finance (AEF): central government support for expenditure on local authority core services.

Annually Managed Expenditure (AME): spending that does not fall within Departmental Expenditure Limits (DEL). Expenditure in AME is generally less predictable than expenditure in DEL and cannot be reasonably be subject to firm, multi-year limits.

Capital Consumption: also called Consumption of Fixed Capital; the amount of fixed assets used up in an accounting period as a result of normal wear and tear, foreseeable obsolescence, and losses from accidental damage. Has been referred to as depreciation in some documents, although this is not recommended to avoid confusion with the same term used with a different definition for tax and business accounting purposes.

Capital Expenditure: includes

• capital formation, the net acquisition of land, and expenditure on capital grants. Fixed assets are assets that can be used repeatedly to produce goods and services and generally have an economic life of more than one year.
• capital expenditure includes the value of assets acquired under finance leases.
• in-house development of assets such as computer software and databases can be capitalised in government accounts provided certain conditions are met. It is sometimes called 'own account capital formation'.

Central Government: comprises parliaments; government departments (including Scottish Government) and their executive agencies; government funds such as the national loans fund; the foreign exchange official reserves; non-departmental public bodies; NHS trusts and various other non-market public bodies controlled by central government.

Country and Regional Analysis (CRA): Analysis in PESA showing public expenditure identifiable to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the English regions.

Current Budget: the difference between current revenues (including capital taxes) and current expenditure (including capital consumption)

Current Expenditure: the sum of the current expenditure of general government (i.e. the Scottish Government, the UK Government in Scotland and Scottish local authorities) and certain distributive transactions (interest and dividends) payable by public corporations to the private sector and abroad. Public sector current expenditure is defined to be net of certain revenue items, such as some sales of goods and services by general government. As it is defined at the public sector level, any transactions and transfers between parts of the public sector are also excluded. Current expenditure includes items such as public sector wages and salaries and transfer payments.

Current Revenue: all revenue raised by the public sector from tax and non-tax revenues except the sale of assets or interest received.

Departmental Expenditure Limits (DELs): spending which is planned and controlled across the period of each spending review. In general, DEL will cover all administration budgets and all programme expenditure. The vast majority of Scottish Government expenditure is DEL.

European System of Accounts 1995 (ESA95): the system used by the Office for National Statistics for producing and presenting UK National Accounts. The system is a legal requirement for EU member states reporting economic statistics to the EU Commission.

Extra-regio: the part of UK economic activity that is not allocated to a specific region. Extra-regio includes 'continental shelf' activity relating to offshore oil and gas extraction, UK embassies overseas and armed forces stationed abroad.

General Government: Central and local government.

Gross Domestic Product (at market prices): a measure of the value of goods and services produced in the UK before providing for capital consumption. It is equal to gross value added at basic prices plus taxes (less subsidies) on products. Alternatively, it is equal to the sum of total final domestic consumption expenditures less imports of goods and services.

Gross Operating Surplus: the surplus generated by operating activities after the labour factor input has been recompensed.

Gross Value Added: the contribution to the economy of each individual producer, industry or sector in Scotland or the UK. It is a measure of GDP in basic prices.

Holding Gains (or losses): either profit or loss obtained by holding assets whose price changes within the period of account. This represents that part of the change in the book value of inventories and work-in-progress during the year, which arises from increases in the prices at which inventories and work-in-progress are valued.

Identifiable Expenditure: expenditure that can be directly identified as having been spent for the benefit of a country or region within the UK.

Local Government: all 32 Local Authorities in Scotland.

National Accounts: a statistical system that represents the economic activity and transactions between sectors in a national economy.

Net Fiscal Balance: the difference between estimated total public sector spending for Scotland and estimated total public sector revenue raised in Scotland.

Net Investment: public sector capital expenditure, net of capital consumption.

Non-departmental bodies: a body which has a role in the processes of government, but is not a government department or part of one, and which accordingly operates to a greater or lesser extent at arm's length from Ministers.

Non-Identifiable Expenditure: expenditure that is considered to occur on behalf of the UK as a whole and which cannot be decomposed on an individual country or regional basis.

Outturn: expenditure (revenue) actually incurred (received) to date and been subject to audit.

Public Corporations: a sector from National Accounts consisting of publicly controlled market entities. To be classed as 'market' their sales must be at least 50 per cent of their operating costs.

Public Expenditure Statistical Analysis (PESA): the primary source of outturn data on public expenditure in the UK. The country and regional analysis, (CRA), presents public expenditure identifiable for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the English regions.

Public Sector Finances: the monthly statistics on the public sector produced jointly by the Office for National Statistics and HM Treasury.

Total Expenditure on Services (TES): an aggregate used in PESA to analyse capital and current spending of the public sector. It includes current expenditure on services and capital expenditure on services.

Total Managed Expenditure (TME): a definition of aggregate public spending derived from National Accounts. TME captures total public expenditure in the UK.

UK Public Sector Net Borrowing: the difference between the sum of UK public sector current and capital revenues and UK public sector expenditure as measured in the Public Sector Finances according to the National Accounts framework.

Who Benefits Principle: the approach used to estimate expenditure for Scotland. It identifies the expenditure in a given year that was incurred for the full range of public services that were consumed: that is, those services provided for the people of Scotland.

Who Pays Principle: the approach used to estimate public sector revenue in Scotland. It is based upon the residential location of where the revenue is raised.