Average annual real-terms change in day-to-day departmental spending at spending reviews, 1998–2025, and government plans until 2029

Source: Institute for Government analysis of HM Treasury, Spending review 2025 (‘Table 5.3: Resource Departmental Expenditure Limits (DEL) excluding depreciation’) and successive HM Treasury multi-year spending review documents.Notes: Day-to-day spending refers to RDEL. The change in 'Total minus health, defence, education and aid' between 2024/25 and 2029/30 is a different measure to the changes in unprotected spending in the same period discussed elsewhere in this document to make the data comparable across spending reviews. 'Previous plans' refers to spending plans the previous government had pencilled in for 2024/25 onwards. SR 2024 starts counting from 2023/24 because SR 2025 announced increases in-year.Get the data Download image
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