UK public borrowing has gone over the target set by George Osborne just over a month ago, according to figure released today.

Public borrowing has fallen to £74.0 billion in the 2015/16 tax year, a massive drop from £91.7 billion the year before. However, it remains above the £72.2 billion target released by Osborne in his annual budget statement on March 16.

The disappointing figures were accompanied by further bad news in the form of a drop in retail sales, an warning for those watching for signs of a slowdown in the economy. Retail sales volumes dropped 1.3 percent on the month in March, a far bigger fall than was forecast by analysts.

George Osborne remains committed to returning the country to a surplus by 2020 – universally acknowledged as a tall order considering the current deficit. Critics may well be offset by the latest figures however, which sees public borrowing fall to 3.9 percent of GDP – a considerable improvement on the 10 percent of GDP that it amounted to when Osborne took office.

21/04/2016