Country & Regional Analysis

What is the CRA?

Each year the Treasury carries out an annual exercise to collate country and regional spending information by government departments, devolved administrations, local authorities and by public corporations using a combination of actual regional spending and statistical methodologies.

The Country and Regional Analysis (CRA) of expenditure is based on the Total Expenditure on Services (TES) framework. Two important principles of the CRA are:

Firstly, the regional allocation of spending is defined by where the individuals and enterprises that benefited from that public spending are located as opposed to where it is spent.
Secondly, expenditure that can be identified as benefiting specific regions or countries is termed 'identifiable expenditure'. Conversely, 'non-identifiable expenditure' is deemed to benefit the UK as a whole, such as defence spending. The CRA only includes 'identifiable expenditure' in its regional totals.

Data

Country and regional spending data are published annually in chapters 9 and 10 of Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses.

The database containing all the underlying data used to compile tables 9.1 to 9.21 and 10.1 to 10.4 in chapters 9 and 10 of PESA 2010 can be downloaded below. Chapter 9 of PESA 2010 should be read in conjunction with this database.

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Country and regional analysis guidance 2011

HM Treasury issued revised guidance to departments for the country and regional analysis (CRA) data collection exercise.