GDP Quarterly National Accounts 2020 statistical enquiry : FOI release

Information requested

Is your calculation of D.6 £31,133 included in D.1 £85,893 billion? If not, please inform me of the values in D.1 that are not included from D.6?
(with reference to statistics in the GDP Quarterly National Accounts for 2020 Quarter 2).

Response

The answer to your question is that D.1 (compensation of employees) is a separate category of income to D.6 Resources (social benefits received), and therefore D.6 is not included within D.1.

With reference to the handbook on the European System of Accounts - ESA 10, compensation of employees (D.1) "is defined as the total remuneration, in cash or in kind, payable by an employer to an employee in return for work done by the latter during an accounting period". As well as compensation of employees, the household sector also receives primary income as D.4 property income (investment income, including interest), B.3 gross operating surplus (the imputed rental income of household owner-occupiers) and B.2 mixed income (self-employment income, neither strictly wages nor profits).

As part of the secondary redistribution of income account for the household sector, social benefits (D.6) are defined as "transfers to households, in cash or in kind, intended to relieve them from the financial burden of a number of risks or needs, made through collectively organised schemes, or outside such schemes by government units and NPISHs". Social benefit income includes social security benefits from government, the state pension, occupational and private pensions, and other items. These forms of household income are completely separate from and additional to the compensation of employees recorded in D.1. You may be interested to note that there is a breakdown of the D.6 resources total included in Table X2 of the file that you referenced in your request.

As well as the European System of Accounts handbook referenced above, you may also be interested in the free online book Understanding National Accounts, published by the OECD, as a relatively accessible guide to the system of national accounts and economic statistics.

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