UK National Accounts, The Blue Book: 2022

British National accounts statistics including national and sector accounts, industrial analyses and environmental accounts.

Blue Book 2022 the reference and last base year has remained at 2019 for a second consecutive year.

Chapters in this compendium:

1. An Introduction to the UK National Accounts
2. National accounts at a glance
3. The industrial analyses
4. Non-financial corporations
5. Financial corporations
6. General government
7. Households and non-profit institutions serving households
8. Rest of the World
9. Gross fixed capital formation supplementary tables
10. National balance sheet
11. Public sector supplementary tables
12. Statistics for international purposes
13. Environmental accounts
14. Flow of funds
15. Glossary
16. Background notes

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Blue Book

Accounting Framework

In the UK, priority is given to the production of a single gross domestic product (GDP) estimate using income, production and expenditure data. The sector accounts summarise the transactions of particular groups of institutions within the economy. They show how the income from production is distributed and redistributed and how savings are used to add wealth through investment in physical or financial assets.

The accounting framework provides a systematic and detailed description of the UK economy, including sector accounts and the input-output framework.

All elements required to compile aggregate measures, such as gross domestic product (GDP), gross national income (GNI), saving and the current external balance (the balance of payments) are included.

The economic accounts provide the framework for a system of volume and price indices, to allow chained volume measures of aggregates such as GDP to be produced. In this system, value added, from the production approach, is measured at basic prices (including other taxes less subsidies on production but not on products) rather than at factor cost (which excludes all taxes less subsidies on production).

The whole economy is subdivided into institutional sectors with current price accounts running in sequence from the production account through to the balance sheet.

The accounts for the whole UK economy and its counterpart, the rest of the world, follow a similar structure to the UK sectors, although several of the rest of the world accounts are collapsed into a single account as they can never be complete when viewed from a UK perspective.

Financial transactions

Financial transactions differ from distributive transactions in that they relate to transactions in financial claims, whereas distributive transactions are unrequited. The main categories in the classification of financial instruments are:

1-monetary gold and special drawing rights
2-currency and deposits
3-debt securities
4-loans
5-equity and investment fund shares or units
6-insurance, pension and standardised guarantee schemes
7-financial derivatives and employee stock options
8-other accounts receivable or payable

This release includes data up to 2021. Data are consistent with the Index of Production and the current price trade in goods data within UK trade, both published on 12 October 2022, as well as the balance of payments, quarterly national accounts and UK Economic Accounts, published on 30 September 2022.

Chapter 1

Chapter 1 of the Blue Book provides a summary of the UK National Accounts, including explanations and tables covering the main national and domestic aggregates, for example:

• gross domestic product (GDP) at current market prices and chained volume measures
• GDP deflator
• gross value added (GVA) at basic prices
• gross national income (GNI)
• gross national disposable income (GNDI)
• population estimates
• employment estimates
• GDP per head
• the UK Summary Accounts (the goods and services account, production accounts, distribution and use of income accounts, and accumulation accounts)

Chapter 1 also includes details of revisions to data since Blue Book 2021.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 includes:

• input–output supply and use tables
• analyses of GVA at current market prices and chained volume measures
• capital formation
• workforce jobs by industry

Chapters 3 to 7

Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 provide:

• a description of the institutional sectors
• the sequence of the accounts and balance sheets
• an explanation of the statistical adjustment items needed to reconcile the accounts
• the fullest available set of accounts providing transactions by sectors and appropriate subsectors of the economy (including the rest of the world)

Chapters 8 to 11

Chapters 8, 9, 10 and 11 cover additional analysis and include:

• supplementary tables for gross fixed capital formation (GFCF), national balance sheet and public sector
• statistics for international purposes

Chapter 12

Chapter 12 covers the UK Environmental Accounts.

Chapter 13

Chapter 13 covers flow of funds.