LONDON: Britain’s public finances showed an improvement in the fiscal year to February, two days after Finance Minister George Osborne announced a cut to government borrowing forecasts for this year and next.

Deficit reduction has been Osborne’s central economic policy since Britain’s Conservative-led coalition came to power in 2010, when Britain’s budget gap was 11 percent of annual economic output — one of the highest for a major economy.

Britain’s public finances, excluding financial sector interventions, showed a deficit of 9.311 billion pounds ($15.4 billion) in February, the Office for National Statistics said.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a slightly smaller deficit of 9.0 billion pounds.

That was up slightly compared with a year ago, although government income last February was boosted by the sale of 4G mobile phone spectrum.

“February’s public finances figures confirm that the UK’s budget deficit is continuing to make slow downward progress,” said Jonathan Loynes, chief European economist at Capital Economics.

He said Britain could beat an official forecast for cutting the deficit next year, given signs the economy could grow by around 3 percent.

“But the big picture is still that there is a very long way to go before the public finances are restored to full health,” said Loynes.

February’s figures benefitted from a carry-over of delayed payments of income tax from January, when there was a smaller-than-expected seasonal surplus.

Departmental spending jumped more than 7 percent in the 11 months to February, driven by new data on spending from the Department of Health last month, and as government departments consolidated their accounts toward the end of the fiscal year, an ONS official said.

But there was also a large rise in the “other receipts” category. An ONS official said that largely reflected cash transfers to the Treasury from the Bank of England’s bond buying program.

Financial markets were unmoved by the data.

For the year to date — stripping out the effect of cash transfers from Royal Mail and the Bank of England — the deficit totaled 99.3 billion pounds, 4.3 percent lower than at the same point in 2013.

Public sector net debt was 1.247 trillion pounds in February, equivalent to 74.7 percent of gross domestic product.

With one month left of the fiscal year, that puts finance minister Osborne in position to meet a new full-year borrowing forecast of 108 billion pounds — or 6.6 percent of gross domestic product.

The Office for Budget Responsibility — Britain’s budget watchdog — predicted the budget deficit will fall to 5.5 percent of GDP next year.

Osborne’s budget courted voters ahead of an election in 2015 with promises of help for savers, tax breaks for manufacturers and lower levies on beer and bingo.

He also announced upgrades to official forecasts for economic growth, although he stressed he would stick to his belt-tightening plans which include a cap on welfare spending.