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A Case study: Government spending in the UK


The following diagram shows the extent of government spending in the UK, and identifies spending by individual government departments.

The following website provides a great deal on information about UK government spending. Specifically it enables you to see information about:

  • types of spending
  • spending by region
  • central and local government spending
  • how government spending changes over time
  • the proportion of overall GDP spent by the UK government


  1. Identify the five main areas of government spending in the UK.
  2. Describe how the proportion of government spending on these five areas changed over the last 5 years.
  3. Plot the proportion of GDP spent by the government over the last 10 years and describe the results you have found.
  4. Use the web to find out the above data for your own country.