The health of Britain’s public finances is being closely watched in Westminster and the City of London, only days before the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is due to announce her spring statement on Wednesday.
Public borrowing hit £10.7bn in February, higher than the £6.6bn forecast by City economists.
It illustrates the scale of the challenge facing Reeves, who is due to announce cuts to spending, alongside fresh economic and public finance forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility, next week.
The ONS said that overall, government borrowing hit £132.2bn in the financial year to February, which is £14.7bn more than the same period a year earlier.
Alex Kerr, a UK economist at Capital Economics, said: "Although they will have no impact on the fiscal update next week, the significant overshoot in borrowing in February highlights the chancellor’s tight fiscal backdrop. The OBR will still most likely conclude that the chancellor’s headroom against her fiscal rules has been wiped out.
"So we expect her to announce further non-defence spending cuts, on top of the welfare cuts already unveiled earlier this week."
GFK consumer confidence showed another uptick in morale.
The index rose for the second month in a row, edging upwards to -19 from a measure of -20. It represents a three-month high but is still below the survey’s long-run average of -10.
It adds to a mixed picture for Reeves, with the figures suggesting marginal improvements in the perception of the UK economy but that confidence is still fragile.
Neil Bellamy, the consumer insights director at GfK, said: "We are still below the long-term average of -10. If consumer confidence were a patient languishing in a hospital bed, a doctor would say there is little evidence of a recovery as yet. Where do we go from here?
"The current stability is to be welcomed but it won’t take much to upset the fragile consumer mood." The agenda • 3pm GMT: eurozone consumer confidence (preliminary) for March • 10:30am GMT: Russian interest rate decision
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