Sections · PESA departmental group
Defence
The Ministry of Defence and the armed forces. In 2025-26 the bodies in this section spent £62.1bn on services. £31.2bn of it (50.3%) can be followed to who received it, and at most 53.1% counting payees who are named but can't be identified yet.
- Reached an identified organisation
- Reached a recipient the publisher did not name
- Reached people, counted by benefit
- Reached staff (pay) or holders of government debt (interest), followed as one published total
- Named payee, not yet identified (may be another public body)
- Not followed
How far it is followed, and why the rest can't be
- Below the publication threshold
Payments under £25,000 (central government and the NHS) or £500 (councils) are not published one by one. Some publishers list every payment anyway; most do not.
- Pay: followed to staff as one total£17.9bnmeasured
Wages are never published person by person, and must not be. The staff costs of the 1 bodies in this section, from HM Treasury's OSCAR database (2025-26, provisional outturn), are counted as followed to their staff.
Where the records come from
Each publisher's 2025-26 payment records, and where their money went. "Identified" means matched to a registered company, charity or other organisation outside government; "named only", a payee named in the record but not yet matched; "passed on", paid to another public body.
| Publisher | Months | Records | Identified | Named only | Withheld | Passed on |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ministry of Defence | 12 | 31,176 | £13.3bn | £1.8bn | £0 | £104m |
The largest payees not yet identified
Payees paid £5m or more. Named in the records as shown, but not yet matched to a registered organisation or a public body. Some may be public bodies; until they are matched they are counted as followed by name only.
| Payee, as published | 2025-26 |
|---|---|
| UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT | £496m |
| ORGANISATION FOR JOINT ARMAMENTS CO-OPERATION EXECUTIVE ADMIN | £205m |
| MONEYCORP (HONG KONG) LIMITED - UK BRANCH | £110m |
| OCCAR-EA | £90m |
| AMEX GBT | £68m |
| MOTOR OIL (HELLAS) CORINTH REFINERIES S.A | £58m |
| SAAB AB | £57m |
| BARCLAYS BANK | £54m |
| GENERAL ATOMICS AERONAUTICAL SYSTEMS, INC. | £53m |
| COUNCIL OF RESERVE FORCES' AND CADETS' ASSOCIATIONS | £45m |
What PESA says this section spends on
| Function | 2025-26 | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Defence | £60.4bn | 97% |
| Social protection | £1.7bn | 3% |
| Recreation, culture and religion | £19m | 0% |