Though the public finances deteriorated rapidly through the course of financial year 2009/10, the final outturn looks like being considerably less than once feared. Unusually, the Treasury's near-term projections for tax receipts were too cautious and the Chancellor announced in the Budget that Public Sector Net Borrowing was likely to come in £11bn lower than previously forecast at £166.5bn. Validating this forecast at this stage is complicated by the Treasury's move to forecasting Public Sector Net Borrowing excluding financial interventions (PSNBX), for which no monthly data is published, but the forecasts do not seem unreasonable.
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