Overall public deficit falls to 8.7% to November, excluding local authorities

The Ministry of the Treasury and Public Function published the budget performance figures for the Central Government, regional governments and the Social Security system on its website on Tuesday to the month of November in national accounting terms.

The consolidated deficit of the public authorities, excluding local authorities, amounts to 37.24 billion euros, 8.7% less than in the same period of the previous year. In GDP terms, the deficit of these three sub-sectors is equivalent to 3.33%, compared with 3.79% of GDP posted to November 2015.

If the negative balance of aid to financial institutions is included, for the sum of 2.34 billion euros, the deficit to November would stand at 3.54% of GDP, a 0.3-point decline on the same period of 2015.

Central Government

The deficit of Central Government (excluding financial aid) amounts to 24.52 billion euros in November, equivalent to 2.2% of GDP, compared with 2.16% in November 2015.

When including the aid to financial institutions, the Central Government deficit to November stands at 2.4% of GDP, including the State deficit (2.36% of GDP), as well as the deficit of Central Government bodies (0.04% of GDP).

Social Security Funds

The Social Security deficit to November stands at 7.31 billion euros, equivalent to 0.65% of GDP, 4.4 billion euros higher than in the same period of 2015.

This trend is down, on the one hand, to a greater deficit of the Social Security system, 18.9% up on 2015, with growth of 2.1% in revenue, or 2.21 billion euros, compared with a 3.3% increase in spending, or 3.84 billion euros.

Noteworthy is the increase in social contributions, which has grown by 3% (more than double the rate of 1.3% posted a year ago), as a result of the increase in the number of contributors recorded in the system by 3.2% on the same period of 2015.

The expense on social benefits (contributory and non-contributory pensions) has increased by 3.4%, a similar rate to previous months.

On another note, the lower surplus posted by the Public State Employment Service has also contributed to this, which has fallen by 48.1%, due to lower transfers received from the State (5.64 billion euros less than in 2015), as a result of improvements in the labour market.

On a positive note, the Wage Guarantee Fund (Spanish acronym: FOGASA) has had a positive effect, which reduced its deficit to November by 43.1%.

Regional Governments

Regional governments reduced their deficit by 63% year-on-year to 5.42 billion euros, equivalent to 0.49% of GDP, 0.87 percentage points lower than in the same period of the previous year.

In 2016, the deficit of the regional governments was favourably affected by the result of the definitive settlement for 2014 with a balance in favour of the regions of 7.67 billion euros, compared with the definitive settlement for 2013, also in favour of the regions, of 1.75 billion euros.

Together with the increase in non-financial resources of this sub-sector, which increased to November by 5.9%, non-financial resources fell on the previous year by 0.9%, with a noteworthy reduction of 7% in accrued interest as a result of the positive performance of the markets.