British government borrowing over the last six months was over 10 per cent higher than in 2013, official data showed yesterday, giving Chancellor George Osborne a tough task to meet his full-year borrowing goals.

Osborne aimed in March to reduce Britain’s budget deficit by more than 10 per cent over the following 12 months, and yesrterday’s figures suggest he has little scope to offer sweeteners to voters before national elections due in May.

Borrowing for September alone was 15.3 per cent higher than a year earlier at £11.8 billion, the Office for National Statistics said.

That compared to economists forecasts for it to hold roughly steady at £10.5 billion.

For the first six months of the financial year, public sector net borrowing, excluding state-controlled banks, was £58.0 billion, 10.3 per cent higher than in 2013.

Last month’s data showed that borrowing between April and August was 6 per cent higher than a year earlier. Exact comparisons between the government’s budget plans and actual borrowing are difficult.

Since last month, the ONS has been using a new method for calculating the headline measure of British public borrowing.

Under the old measure, public sector net borrowing excluding financial sector interventions, stood at £12.6 billion in the month of September, up 14.5 per cent from a year earlier.

Borrowing on this basis was forecast in March to fall to 5.5 per cent of gross domestic product in the 2014/15 tax year from 6.6 per cent in 2013/14. Revisions to GDP and other changes mean that on the new measure, 2013/14 borrowing is now estimated to have been 5.7 per cent of GDP.

Deficit reduction has been the central economic policy of the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government since it took power in 2010. Weak growth in 2011 and 2012 has meant that it will not achieve its original plan to largely eliminate the deficit by 2015.

The government has said that the extra borrowing so far this year is due to an uneven pattern of tax receipts in 2013, and that the differences would even out before the end of the financial year.

Last week the head of the government’s budget watchdog said greater numbers of people in work were not bringing the expected increase in income tax revenues.

The data showed that revenue from income tax and employment insurance contributions in September was 2.3 per cent higher than a year ago, while for the year to date it was up by just 0.5 per cent.